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by writeonclara



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Identity Reveal, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-19 20:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeonclara/pseuds/writeonclara
Summary: The serum does wear off, but Steve still makes it to the 21st century. The future means a boring desk job at S.H.I.E.L.D., until the Winter Soldier shoots his boss and then breaks into his apartment. Repeatedly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Now translated into Japanese by the awesome みコりん (Kumicolinxx). Thank you! 
> 
> Read here: https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=9662896

Had anyone bothered to tell Steve that the future means a boring desk job at S.H.I.E.L.D., he would have cheerfully asked to remain frozen in the Arctic for the rest of eternity.

In a way it's kind of pathetically funny. It had been a modern miracle when S.H.I.E.L.D. brought him back from his icy death, and for awhile he was hounded by historians and reporters and Howard Stark's eccentric genius son. But when the excitement died down, the prevailing question had been: "Sooo, what do we do with him now?" Which is why, in the bright future of 2014, he’s stuck sitting in a tiny cubicle, staring at a digital clock day in and day out.

It's kind of a let down.

Steve slumps at his desk, head in hand, and doodles his boss in the margin of his notebook. He has one more hour until lunch, and six more hours until he can go home. He's wondering if he can get away with another break (or maybe to hide in the bathroom for twenty minutes, who's going to tell?) when Director Fury looms up to his desk and says, “Rogers.”

Steve nearly jumps out of his skin. Fury flicks a glance at Steve’s drawing, then back at Steve. “In my office. Now.”

Steve clears his throat and closes his notebook. It would be his dumb luck if he got fired for drawing his boss as a fire breathing demon. He follows Fury into his office. Fury shuts the door with an ominous _click_ and circles around his desk. He doesn’t sit, just looks out one of the floor-to-ceiling windows with his arms folded behind his back, like a king watching over his domain. Nice and dramatic.

Steve loiters by the door, rocking on his heels. “Yes, sir?”

“Agent Romanoff recommended you for an intel op,” Fury says.

Steve blinks. He’s always liked Natasha Romanoff; she’s one of the few people who doesn’t treat him like he’s going to break, and will train with him when she has the time. She's also devastatingly attractive, but you don't need to be a rocket scientist to deduce that she would cheerfully rip your throat out with her teeth if you mentioned it. “She did?”

Fury turns to him, expression professionally blank. “She did. I see her point. You have a forgettable face.”

“Thank you?” Steve says.

Fury flashes a quicksilver grin at him. He fishes a small device out of his pocket and tosses it to Steve. Steve fumbles but manages not to drop it. “There is important information I require from a mobile satellite launch platform. You will be flown out to the Lemurian Star at eleven a.m. tomorrow morning as a tech. Get all the information you can off the ship.”

“Sure,” Steve says, examining the device. It’s fancier than his phone. “Um, sir? What is this thing?”

Fury slides one hand over his face. “For God’s sake, Rogers, it’s a flash drive.”

Steve holds the 'flash drive' up. It glows with little purple LED lights down the side. “This? Is not a flash drive. I’ve taken Computers 101. This looks more like, I don’t know, an alien flash drive.” He lowers the device again and frowns at it. “Or maybe a bomb.”

“It’s one of Starks,” Fury explains. “Just plug it into a computer and let it work its magic. Thankfully, you won’t need to do much more than that. Now get out of my office before I change my mind. Christ.”

And that’s how Steve ends up on a ship the size of a small city, dressed in a baggy gray suit and black framed glasses, with something that’s more of a mini computer than a flash drive tucked into his back pocket. He attempts to look like a tech; he’s not entirely sure what a tech does, but he must be doing something right, because he’s mostly ignored.

The Lemurian Star feels like a rock underfoot. This doesn’t stop Steve’s stomach from lurching unpleasantly. The ocean is, apparently, yet another thing his body hates. He stumbles against a wall and clasps a hand over his mouth. A young brunette watches him from down the hall, her expression a mix of amusement and pity.

“You okay?” she asks. She’s pretty cute, in a ‘I-will-eat-your-face’ kind of way. Actually, she reminds Steve a little of Natasha.

He flaps a hand. “I’m good,” he says, voice coming out high and strangled.

The tech apparently picks up on the imminent horror show because she gets going while the going’s good. Steve staggers onward, not entirely sure where he’s going. He can’t screw this up. It’s his first _real mission_. He sucks in a deep breath through his nose, and releases it from his mouth. The sooner he gets Fury’s intel, the faster he can hang his head over the railing and pray for land.

He finds the room most likely to have the data Fury needs, but of course it’s crawling with professionally dressed men and women. Steve recognizes Jasper Sitwell leaning over a blonde woman’s shoulder. He lurks by the door, peering through the crack. Damn. He’s pretty sure if he just strolls in and starts messing with the computers, he’s going to do more than raise a few eyebrows. Maybe there’s a circuit breaker nearby he can flip to shut off the room’s electricity. Or—

Distantly, Steve hears the loud report of a gun being fired.

“That works,” Steve mutters, clinically, like his heart isn’t trying to hammer its way through his chest. Then he dives into a supply closet. It’s a tight fit, and for once in his life, Steve is grateful for his small stature.

In the hall, there’s the thunder of men charging by, shouting in French. Someone screams. Steve shrinks further back, hoping no one decides they desperately need to clean the windows. 

There was a time when no one thought he’d make it past the age twenty-five. Now here he is, roughly ninety-six years old, hiding in a supply closet with a bottle of Windex jamming into his rear, on a ship just boarded by people Steve strongly suspects are pirates.

At least the fear has effectively wiped away his seasickness. Thank God for small wonders.

He waits until the shouts fade away, waits a little longer for good measure, and then cracks open the closet door. Silence. Exhaling through his teeth, he scuttles into the computer room.

Okay. All he needs to do is to plug the flash drive into the USB port. He’s got this. He passed the computer class Tony made him take with flying colors. He knows what he’s doing.

Except, of course, learning his way around a PC is drastically different from operating a control panel of a mobile satellite launch platform. Steve rakes his fingers through his hair, overwhelmed. Logically, he knows that Fury chose him for this mission because he, apparently, has a _forgettable face_ (thanks, Fury), but he could have chosen someone who had more than a 1930s working knowledge of technology.

There’s another round of gunfire overhead. Steve flinches, then hurries over to one of the computers. Mission first, freak out later. Shrugging to himself, he grabs the flash drive from his back pocket and starts jamming it into every port along the side of the computer. One of them _has_ to work.

It takes Steve three tries to find the right port, and then he has to flip it around a couple of times before it actually goes in. A folder opens on the screen, prompting him to select the directories he would like to copy over. He selects them all, just to be safe. There’s a quiet _ding_ that makes him jump and look over his shoulder. A prompt pops up, letting him know that it will take fifteen minutes for all the files to copy over.

“Shit,” Steve mutters, then hides under a desk.

He’s terrified—but also exhilarated. He can’t stop his face from grinning stupidly. It feels so good to finally be doing something with his life—besides crashing a plane full of nukes into the Arctic, that is. The pirates are an added benefit. Pirates! Bucky would be so jealous. Well, Bucky would tick him off for being a thrill-seeking sap who’s always dragging Bucky’s good name through the mud, but then he’d cram himself under the desk next to Steve and ask what he could do to help. If there’s one thing Steve can count on, it’s that Bucky’s always ready to be dragged into Steve’s schemes.

Steve’s smile fades slightly. _Could_ count on.

He pops out from under the desk and checks the screen every thirty seconds, cringing at every volley of gunfire. It’s distant, so Steve should be able to finish the transfer without getting shot. But the fifteen minutes feels like three years, and when the computer finally dings to notify him that everything’s complete, Steve springs out from under the desk and snatches it from the port all in one motion. He pockets it, sprints for the door, and crashes right into a pirate.

“Ah, hell!” Steve shouts.

“Zut alors!” the pirate shouts back.

Steve flails a punch at him, purely out of instinct. The pirate easily dodges, then grabs his wrist and twists his arm behind his back. He struggles, but stops when something cold and hard presses into his back.

“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Steve asks snidely.

The pirate says, “Ta gueule,” and shoves him, hard.

* * *

The room where the pirates are keeping the hostages is cold and damp. Now that Steve is no longer running on adrenaline and exhilaration, he’s back to being hopelessly seasick. Maybe if he projectile vomits on one of the pirates, they’ll let him go. Or they’ll shoot him in the head, whichever. He’s honestly not sure which one he’d prefer right now.

One of the pirates is losing patience. He paces across the room, muttering something to his pirate buddy in French, before turning to the hostages and shouting, “I have a bullet for someone.” He kicks the man next to Steve on the leg. “Do you want a bullet in your head?”

Steve tilts his head up. Scowls at the pirate. “Hey, buddy, you wanna show some respect?”

The pirate wheels on Steve, eyebrows winging up in disbelief. He lowers the gun to press it against Steve’s forehead, hard. Steve doesn’t flinch. “What did you say to me?”

“Just because you’re the types of cowards who—”

“Rogers, shut up,” Sitwell hisses, on Steve’s left.

“—use human lives as bargaining chips,” Steve continues, raising his voice to be heard over Sitwell’s protests, “doesn’t mean you gotta be rude about it.”

Now everyone is staring at Steve. Steve doesn’t even blink, just glares up at the pirate.

“Il a du culot,” the pirate murmurs, sounding impressed. Then he clicks the safety off his gun.

The door blows open. There’s a _bang!_ and the pirate about to shoot Steve in the head crumples to the ground.

“We’ve got some live ones in here!” a huge STRIKE agent shouts, and Steve groans when he recognizes the square jaw and buzzed undercut. He’s never spoken with Rumlow, but he’s seen him around HQ enough to know that he _hates_ him.

Rumlow zeroes in on Steve, his lips stretching into a shit eating grin. “Wow. Wowee. The history books weren’t exaggerating. You sure are a little guy, Rogers.”

Steve bristles. The history books _had_ exaggerated. He’s seen some accounts list his height as 5’4” and others go as low as 5 even. He’s 5’7”, which isn’t that short. Hell, he’s only a couple inches shorter than Tony Stark, and only one inch shorter than Dr. Bruce Banner (according to Jarvis, who Steve most certainly didn’t ask). He’s even got more meat on him; the future has food, and Steve has gone up from a buck ten to a buck thirty-five. But Steve just grits his teeth and says nothing. It’s not like he hasn’t heard it all before.

“Hey, Sailor,” Natasha says, leaning against the door jamb. She smiles at Steve. “Need a little help?”

“Nat,” Steve sighs gratefully, completely dismissing Rumlow. He holds his zip-tied hands up to her and grins hopefully.

She pulls a knife out from somewhere and cuts him free. “You alright? You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

“Copacetic,” Steve says. His head feels light. “Thank you so much for getting me this job. Here.” He fishes out the flash drive from his pocket and smacks it into her hand, then staggers past her, up the stairs and to the deck. He, at least, makes it to the railing before he’s sick. That doesn’t stop Rumlow from hooting after him.

Steve’s hanging his head over the edge of the railing, staring down at the waves with that particular brand of melancholy that only comes with being horribly sick, when Natasha leans on the railing next to him. She says, “What about Janice? From R&D. She’s pretty cute. Artsy, too. You like art, right?”

“I _hate_ you,” Steve says.

* * *

It’s a surprise to exactly no one when he ends up getting a cold after the Lemurian Star.

“Good god, you look like shit,” Sam says, staring down at Steve.

Steve untucks his arms from under his pile of blankets to make grabby hands at the greasy bag Sam’s holding. “You’re a real lifesaver, pal.”

“I never know when you’re being sarcastic,” Sam mutters, going to the kitchenette and filling a mug with water. He pops it in the microwave and sets it for three minutes.

“I’m dead serious. Grab me a spoon?”

Sam grumbles about it, but does, since he's a wonderful person. “You know there’s such a thing as delivery, right? You don’t actually need me to pick up the takeout for you. They have delivery people for that.”

Steve snorts messily, which is actually pretty disgusting. He grabs a tissue and honks into it, then tosses it into the paper bag he’s using for his biohazardous trash. “Sam. I never ask you to do anything. You bring me egg drop soup all on your own volition.”

“Because if I didn’t, you would die a lonely death of starvation on your couch,” Sam says reasonably.

Steve shrugs. It’s true enough. Sam has been a godsend.

Steve’s apartment is _huge_ , easily over sixteen hundred square feet, and filled with relics that look like they were made in his time but had production dates decades after he put the Valkyrie down in the Arctic. But for all that it’s filled with crap (likely because Tony thinks he’s hilarious), it’s empty in a way that reminds Steve of rattling around the brownstone by himself the first days after Bucky left for Basic.

So in a fit of lonely desperation several months ago, Steve had swung by the VA. It turned out to be an excellent decision, since he got to meet Sam, who is one of the greatest people of the 21st century. Especially since he brings Steve egg drop soup when he was sick.

Sam collects the coffee mugs from Steve’s coffee table with a long suffering sigh. “Coffee? Really? You’re sick. You should be drinking tea.”

“The heat helps my throat,” Steve lies, sipping on the broth directly from the container.

“How many cups have you had today?” Sam asks.

“Three?” Steve hedges after a moment. “No, four.”

“Do you know how bad that is for your heart?” Sam asks, taking the mug from the microwave and plunking in a chamomile tea bag. He moves aside one of Steve’s sketches and sets it on the coffee table.

“I got it fixed,” Steve says, grabbing the carton with potstickers. He holds it out to Sam, who rolls his eyes, but takes one anyway. “You know they used an actual robot during my surgery? I think his name is da Vinci.”

Sam snorts and steals another potsticker, which Steve didn’t offer but magnanimously allows. “I’m heading to the VA. Text if you need anything else.”

“Sure, Ma,” Steve says, with only a little irritation. He hates being babied, but Sam _had_ just fed him.

He stays home for the rest of the week, but S.H.I.E.L.D. lets their employees work from home once in awhile, so he’s at least still productive. Sam comes by two more times to make sure he’s still alive and to sit with him through a terrible kung fu movie that still manages to be hilarious.

By the fourth night of sitting on his couch, he’s starting to get stir crazy. He’s just debating whether or not he should brave the supermarket so that Sam will stop looking at him with concerned eyebrows when Director Fury stumbles through his front door.

Steve scrambles to his feet, rushing to Fury’s side. His arm’s in a sling and there are deep lines of pain etched into his face. “Jeez, Fury—”

Fury lifts a finger to his lips, then sinks down into Steve’s armchair. “My wife kicked me out. Need a place to crash.”

“Uh,” Steve says, blankly. He’s talked to Fury maybe three times and has no idea why he would come to _Steve_ when he’s gravely injured. “Yeah, of course.”

“Sorry to bother you, I know you’ve been out sick,” Nick says, typing one handed on his phone. He holds it up for Steve to see. _SHIELD compromised._

Steve’s eyes bug, but he manages to keep his voice even. “It’s no problem, Director. Who else knows about your wife?” He winces slightly at himself. It was a dumb question, but he didn’t know how else to ask. Hopefully, Fury would be able to translate his clumsy attempt at getting intel.

Fury holds up his phone. _You and me._ “Just my friends,” Fury says meaningfully.

There’s a rapid _bam-bam-bam_ of gunfire and Steve watches in horror as Fury’s body flinches violently. He spins around, stares at the _wall_ that had just been shot through, then at the window. There’s a flash of movement, a glint of dim light reflecting off metal.

He gets Fury off the chair, but he’s too heavy for Steve to drag out of the room. “Hang in there,” Steve says, hauling the coffee table in front of him as a poor excuse of cover.

Fury catches his wrist. “Steve,” he coughs. His one eye is terrified. “Trust no one.”

“Steve?” someone shouts, banging on his apartment door. It bursts open, and Kate from down the hall rushes in. “Steve, are you okay?”

“Kate, thank god,” Steve babbles, not even pausing to think why his neighbor would burst into his apartment after hearing gunshots. “You’re a nurse, right? _Help_ him.”

Kate’s eyes widen when she sees Fury slumped on the ground, but Steve rushes past her, sprinting down the hall and out the apartment. The shooter had to be close by. Sure enough, there’s a shimmer of movement on the roof of the building next door.

“Hey!” Steve shouts. He must look like a mad person, flailing down the street in his fluffy black robe and his slippers, his hair sticking up in every direction, shouting at the roof. The shooter bounds to the next building with the ease of a jungle cat. Jesus. “Hey, get down here!”

The thing about the future is despite all the medical advancements that have drastically improved his life—laser eye surgery, blood pressure pills, heart surgery—the only thing 2014 has for his asthma is his inhaler, which he forgot back in his apartment, on his nightstand. So Steve chases Fury’s shooter for about a block before he stumbles to a stop and braces his hands on his knees, his body forcing him to suck down lungfuls of stabbing air. He curses up a blue streak that would have made Bucky cuff him up the back of his head and coughs, hard, into his fist. It’s not a full blown asthma attack yet, but it feels like his chest is stuffed full of a wool blanket and every breath scratches its way down his throat in a guttural wheeze.

He’s pretty much given up on ever catching the assassin and is concentrating on not dying on the spot when a pair of black combat boots drop into view. He jerks a little and lifts his head long enough to confirm that yes, that is Fury’s shooter looming over him, before he drops his head back down.

Steve holds up a finger as if to say, _please give me one second to catch my breath before you murder me indiscriminately_. He almost leaps out of his skin when the the shooter circles a—a goddamn metal hand around his bony wrist and tugs it to his own chest. He tries to jerk away, skin crawling, but the shooter has a firm grip. It takes Steve several long, shocked moments to realize the shooter is drawing in slow, deep breaths. Like his mom used to do. Like Bucky used to do. It’s almost instinct to follow along with his careful breaths.

The shooter’s goggles are focused somewhere over Steve's left shoulder, as if he’s in a completely different world. He breathes slow, but the gasps that are filtering through his mask are growing ragged. Steve’s breath finally evens out and he jerks his hand back, flushing with embarrassment and growing anger.

“Y-you,” Steve squeezes out. His lungs are still tight and he still balls his hands into fists, but his whole body is trembling. _You’re such a scrappy little shit_ Bucky used to say, and he is, but there’s a big difference between a bully and a goddamn murder machine. “You shot _Fury_.”

The shooter’s goggles snap to Steve’s face so fast that Steve flinches back. He is under no illusions that if the shooter wants him dead, he is _so_ dead.

“Кто ты?” the shooter says. His voice is muffled and Steve doesn’t know a lick of Russian, but he sounds lost and a little shaky, so out of odds with his whole murderous everything.

Steve shakes his head. “Speak English. I can’t understand you.”

“You,” the shooter says, slowly, his accent thick. “Who are you?”

Steve blinks, momentarily stunned out of his anger. Why the hell does he want to know who _Steve_ is? He’s—nobody. He’d had his fifteen minutes of fame when he put Schmidt’s plane in the Arctic, but that had faded into a five sentence blurb in eighth grade history books. He’s positive he only has a say in Avengers meetings out of pity and misplaced historical duty. He doesn’t delude himself into thinking he’s the one everyone wants. The real hero of this story fell off a train decades ago, and he doesn’t even blame anyone for wishing it were Bucky who survived instead of him, since he feels the same way. But still he squares his shoulders and glares up into the black goggles.

“None of your beeswax, pal,” Steve snaps.

The shooter huffs a small laugh behind that black muzzle before going absolutely rigid.

“Who are _you_?” Steve demands.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” the shooter says, and stumbles back a step. “But you, you’re—”

“Wait, hey,” Steve says and then does the stupidest thing in his entire life, including crashing a plane into a frozen ocean—and isn’t it a damn miracle he’s even here?—he grabs the shooter’s bionic arm. To absolutely no one’s surprise, the shooter shoves him off, hard enough that he crashes into a wall.

The Soldier stares at him, hand still outstretched, and Steve has no way of reading his expression, but gets the feeling that the shooter is _horrified_. He stumbles back a step, dropping his arm and releasing a terrible sound, then spins around and throws himself down a narrow alley between a laundromat and a drugstore.

“What the hell,” Steve says, picking himself up off the wall.

* * *

Director Fury does not make it.

From the other side of a viewing glass, Steve watches Natasha tenderly touch the side of Fury’s head, then wipe the tears from her face as a doctor pulls a white sheet over his body. Something hard and hot settles in Steve’s chest and he turns away. He’s more than familiar enough with survivor’s guilt to recognize it in himself.

The apartment he moves into a couple days later is temporary; it’s about half the size of his old apartment with stained carpets and a bathroom the size of a closet. His couch alone takes up his entire family room. There’s only one window; a sliding door that leads to a railing having a go at being a balcony.

Somehow, it feels more like home than the huge place he’d been living in before.

“Man, couldn’t they have set you up in some place that has running hot water?” Sam asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the kitchen sink as he helps unpack Steve’s utensils. “I thought there were benefits to working at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“I can always boil water,” Steve says, not mentioning that he still hasn’t updated S.H.I.E.L.D. with his new address. _Trust no one_.

Sam shoots him a disbelieving look. “I know you were born in like, the dark ages, but here in the modern world, running hot water is a right, not a privilege.”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” Steve says.

Sam puffs out a breath. “Yeah, okay. But you deserve better than this.”

“I like it.”

Steve grabs the box with linens from the stack by the back wall, then stops by the window and looks outside. He gets this feeling, like when you’re driving a car and look over to the car next to yours, only to find the driver beside you already staring. But there’s nothing in the large oak outside except for a couple of chattering crows. Steve frowns a little, shifting the box under one arm to rub the back of his neck. It’s tingling slightly.

“What’s up?” Sam says, stepping around the counter that separates the kitchen from the family room.

“I guess I’m still jumpy,” Steve admits, shrugging one shoulder.

There’s a knock on the door and Steve tenses, dropping his box. Sam glances at him, then nods a little and goes to the door. Steve slips into the narrow hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedroom. He can still see the door, but is out of sight.

Sam pulls his pistol from his side holster and holds it behind his back, then opens the door.

Natasha Romanoff is standing at the stoop, holding a large paper bag in one hand. She’s dressed more casually than Steve’s ever seen, in a striped hoodie and blue jeans. Steve curses internally. If Natasha knows his new address, did that mean S.H.I.E.L.D. did too?

Natasha drags her eyes over Sam’s body, assessing, then curves a sultry smile at him. “Hey, handsome. Is Steve around?”

Sam grins at her, easy as anything, and says, “‘Fraid you just missed him.”

“Oh? That’s too bad. I brought him a housewarming gift,” Natasha says, lifting the paper bag. “Beef chow fun, mu shu pork, and about a dozen potstickers. Mind if I drop it off for him?”

“That’s very kind of you,” Sam says, not budging from where he’s blocking the door. He holds out his hand expectantly.

The Black Widow stares at Sam’s hand with snake eyes. Steve blows out an irritated sigh. He doesn’t know if he can trust her, but she obviously already knows where he lives. Besides, he doesn’t think she’d bring him takeout if she was planning on killing him.

“Let her in, Sam,” Steve says, stepping back into the family room.

Sam takes a step back and releases a slow breath, some of the tension from his shoulders easing. He holsters his gun. “You have the scariest friends, Steve.”

Natasha grins at him, pushing into the apartment. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“What are you doing here, Natasha?” Steve asks, taking the paper bag from her and putting it on the coffee table. He goes to the kitchenette and grabs plates and a fork, since he still hasn’t mastered chopsticks, even though he eats takeout at least twice a week.

Natasha sits on the couch, pulling the cartons out from the greasy paper bag. “I want to know about the shooter.”

Steve waved Sam to the other side of the couch, sitting cross legged on the floor. Sam eyes Natasha warily, then perches at the very edge of the couch, putting as much distance as he can between them.

“Um, he was really fast,” Steve says, piling his plate with chow fun noodles and fat pot stickers. “Strong, too. Speaks Russian.” He pops a piece of beef in his mouth, furrowing his eyebrows in thought. “It was strange, though. I think his left arm was metal, but it moved better than any prosthetic I’ve ever seen.”

Natasha frowns at him, potsticker halfway to her mouth. She’d look silly, if her green eyes aren’t so flinty.

“What?” Steve asks, defensively.

“That’s more detail than I expected. Honestly, I’m surprised you even saw him, if he’s who I think he is.”

“Saw him,” Steve laughs, shaking his head. “It was weird, Nat. I tried chasing after him. Made it about a block before my asthma kicked in and I had to stop. And then this huge guy dropped from the roof and nearly gave me a heart attack. He—well, he took my hand and put it against his chest.”

The potsticker actually drops from Natasha’s chopsticks. “What,” she says.

“Dude,” Sam says.

Steve shakes his head. “It’s—something my ma used to do when I was having an asthma attack. It helped me slow my breathing.”

“Maybe—maybe the shooter knows someone with asthma?” Sam says, doubtfully.

“The Winter Soldier is credited with over two dozen kills in the past fifty years,” Natasha says, flatly. “He’s not someone’s caring older brother.”

“That’s what he’s called? The Winter Soldier?” Sam asks, disbelieving. Natasha nods tightly, and he scoffs. “What a dumb name.”

Steve bites into his potsticker, frowning down at his plate. He knows that Natasha’s right—the man shot Fury _through his wall_ , but something’s bothering him. _Who are you?_ “Talking to him—felt like talking to someone who’s been shell shocked,” he says, trying to put his feelings into words. “Like he wasn’t all there.”

Natasha sets her plate on the table, then lifts the corner of her shirt to reveal a small white scar. “Five years ago, the Winter Soldier put a bullet through me to kill a nuclear engineer I was escorting out of Iran,” she says. “He is a weapon.”

“Weapons are tools,” Sam says, thoughtfully. “If he’s a gun, who’s pointing him?”

“Finding _that_ out is impossible,” Natasha says. “I know. I’ve tried. He’s a ghost story.”

Steve lowers his fork. “Do you guys hear yourselves right now? He’s a _human_ , not a tool or a gun or—or a goddamn ghost story,” he snaps. “If he’s being used in anyway, then that means he’s someone we need to help.”

His friends stare at him in shock. “Steve,” Natasha says, slowly, her eyes going hard in a way Steve has never seen directed at him before. “He killed Fury.”

Steve grimaces like she hit him, some of his self righteous anger melting away. “I know that, I was there,” he mutters.

“I know you’re a soft heart and all,” Sam says, gently. “But the Winter Soldier doesn’t sound like someone you save. He sounds like someone you stop.”

Steve juts out his chin in that stubborn way that used to make Bucky roll his eyes and ruffle his hair, even though he knew it pissed Steve off something fierce. They’re not entirely wrong, but neither is he.

_Who are you?_

_I don’t—I don’t know._

Steve’s phone buzzes, breaking their tense silence. He pulls it from his pocket and taps the screen, frowning at the new email. “I’ve got to go. Work’s calling. Lock up when you leave, please.”

* * *

There’s a heaviness in the air at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Fury was well-known and well-liked, even if he put the fear of God in everyone he spoke with. Steve catches a fair number of people watching him, whispering about how he was the last one to see Fury live. Steve sits at his desk and keeps his head down.

_Trust no one._

At two in the afternoon, they’re called in for an all hands meeting. Steve waits until his office clears out, then grabs his coat and heads to the assembly room. He turns the corner, then immediately dives back behind it when he sees Rumlow and Pierce standing in the empty hall. He presses himself against the wall and holds his breath.

“The asset has gone rogue,” Rumlow says quietly. “We have reason to believe he’s responsible for the destruction of Camp Lehigh.”

Steve frowns. That was his old military base. What did Camp Lehigh have that made it a target? And who was ‘the asset’? Maybe he was a renegade S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. Fury did say that S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised.

“What the fuck are you doing here, then?” Pierce hisses, his voice so venomous that Steve shrinks further against the wall.

“Sir, he’s gone completely off the radar—”

“I don’t care if he’s in Timbuktu. _Find him_.”

Steve waits until Rumlow’s and Pierce’s footsteps fade away, before rounding the corner, following Pierce into the assembly room at a distance.

The assembly room is large, with beautiful floor to ceiling windows lining one wall, and filled with rows of fold out chairs. The only empty seats are a handful in the front, and Steve hurries to an empty chair. He does a double take when he recognizes his old neighbor in the third row, but she drops her eyes when she sees him. Well, okay. So someone from his work had been spying on him. That’s—something he can deal with later.

Sitwell takes the podium, face drawn and grim. “In the 1980s, Nick Fury was invited to join S.H.I.E.L.D. because of his exemplary services to America in the military and beyond,” he begins. He’s good enough that he doesn’t need to read from any cards.

Steve tunes him out, not really on purpose. His mind just keeps going back to the scene in the hallway. Who is the ‘asset’? Why has he gone rogue? And why the _hell_ is his neighbor sitting two rows behind him?

“Three days ago, we lost an extraordinary man—”

There’s a quiet _pop_ and the window closest to the stage spiderwebs. Sitwell’s gasp is caught by his microphone. It takes Steve a long moment to register the bloom of red spreading across Sitwell’s chest. There’s another _pop_ , and Sitwell’s body jerks, blood spraying from his back. His legs go out and he grabs the podium, and Steve can see how wide and scared his eyes are. Screams erupt from the crowd, chairs are knocked over and clatter to the ground.

“No!” Steve shouts, pushing through the frantic wave of people and vaulting onto the stage to put himself between Sitwell at the spray of bullets. He catches Sitwell under his arms, but the man weighs considerably more than Steve and they both go down.

Sitwell grabs Steve’s upper arms, hard enough to bruise, his lips forming a single letter. “W-W—”

“Hold on,” Steve says. He presses his trembling hands against the bubbling wounds, even though he knows it’s pointless. Killshots. Both of them.

“Wi—,” Sitwell says, and then blood bubbles between his lips. Steve has seen death before, on the streets during the Depression and during the war, but this is only the second time he’s seen the life actually fade from someone’s eyes. The first was when he was big and strong for one day, and a Hydra agent shot Dr. Erskine in cold blood.

“Wi—nt,” Sitwell gasps, his last breath.

_Winter Soldier._

* * *

It’s hours before he finally can go home. In fact, he’s pretty sure he only _gets_ to go home due to his ex-neighbor’s intervention, but he doesn’t question it. All he wants to do is get out of his blood stained clothes and wash his entire body in lye. He tosses his keys on his coffee table and shrugs off his jacket, leaving it by his front door. Normally he’d be better at picking up after himself, but he’s so damn tired. Maybe he’ll order a pizza. And alcohol. Do they deliver alcohol in the 21st century? He bets if he calls Tony, he can get alcohol delivered. But then he would have to actually talk to Tony, and he just does not have the energy to deal with hyperactive geniuses right now. Maybe he could call Sam.

He pushes open the door to his bedroom, flicks on the light, and shouts, “Holy shit!”

The Winter Soldier is sitting on his bed, head bowed, face hidden by a curtain of brown hair. He’s leaning his arms on his knees and looks for all the world like a dock worker on a break.

Steve pats desperately at his pockets for his cell phone, then curses himself when he remembers that it's in his jacket pocket.

“Стоп,” the Soldier says. “Stop.”

Steve freezes. The Soldier is still hunched over his knees, but now he has a gun pointed at Steve’s chest. He hadn’t even seen him _move_. He lifts his hands and furrows his brows. “Buddy, you don’t pull a gun on a man in his own bedroom.”

“Заткнись.”

“If you wanna hold a conversation, you’re gonna have to speak in English.”

The Soldier finally lifts his head and lowers his gun. Steve sees that he’s still got the goggles and muzzle on. “You talk to much,” he rasps.

“Screw you too,” Steve snaps. He considers his options, then decides, _screw it_ , and unbuttons his blood-smeared shirt. He can’t stand the idea of being in these blood-stained clothes for one more second. The black goggles don’t even waver. He shrugs off his shirt, tosses it to the corner, and untucks his marginally less dirty undershirt. “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”

The Soldier unfolds himself and gets to his feet in one graceful movement. “Sit,” he orders.

Steve does, taking the Soldier’s place on the bed, but only because he wants to take off his shoes. Something deep in his brain is screaming at him for basically _stripping in front of the Winter Soldier_ , but he ignores it. He’s hollowed out, too tired to dredge up the appropriate fear.

The Soldier paces in front of the bed. It makes Steve think about the time he and Bucky had gone to the Prospect Park Zoo when it first opened in ‘35. They’d saved up for weeks, and Steve had been so excited to draw exotic animals. He’d been sketching a chimp cradling her child like a human mother would when he realized Bucky had disappeared. Steve had found him in front of a big cat closure, watching a cheetah pace nervously back and forth behind iron bars.

“Kinda sad, innit?” Bucky had said. “Like he’s trapped.”

The Soldier stops in front of Steve, looming over him with his shoulders squared. “Why did you try to protect him?” he demands, and there’s not a hint of Russian in his voice.

Steve balls his hands into fists on his knees and glares up into his black goggles. “Sitwell was a good man.”

The Soldier says nothing, and though Steve can’t see his eyes, he can feel them boring into Steve’s face. Like he’s searching for something. “You—fought Hydra,” he says, but it’s hesitant, like he’s pulling from an unreliable source.

Steve frowns, not sure what the Soldier is getting at. “Yeah? And?”

“But—you protected him.”

The implication hits Steve like a physical blow. “What are you saying? Are you telling me—Sitwell was Hydra? Hydra is in _America_?”

The Soldier says nothing. He doesn’t even shrug.

Steve shakes his head, reeling. They’d gotten rid of Hydra. Bucky’s Howling Commandos had ripped apart every Hydra base across Europe, and Steve had closed the deal by vaporizing Schmidt and then crashing his plane into the Arctic.

If Sitwell was Hydra, that meant S.H.I.E.L.D. was— “Wait,” he says, his thoughts spilling out before they’re even fully formed. “What about Nick Fury? Was he…?”

“No,” the Soldier says.

Steve’s shoulders sag with relief. He hadn’t known Fury for long, but the thought that he’d been taking direct orders from Hydra makes him feel physically sick. He drops his head into his hands. If Hydra could infiltrate an international organization under the UN’s jurisdiction—where else could they be?

What had been the point of all his sacrifices?

“I didn’t know,” Steve confesses, raggedly. “I didn’t know he was Hydra.”

 _Hydra_. In America. In _S.H.I.E.L.D._ God, they are so fucked.

The Soldier’s combat boots enter his line of vision. Gently, he places the fingers of his flesh hand under Steve’s chin and tilts his face back up. The Soldier swipes his thumb across Steve’s cheekbone.

Steve’s eyes bug.

The Soldier lets him go, then vaults out of his bedroom window as if they aren’t on the fifth floor.

“What the _hell_?” Steve says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French:  
> Zut alors! - Damn!  
> Ta gueule - Shut up  
> Il a du culot - He has a lot of nerves
> 
> Russian:  
> Кто ты? - Who are you?  
> Заткнись - Shut up


	2. Chapter 2

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s closed the next day, so Steve eats breakfast, throws on his peacoat, and leaves his apartment to visit the one person who might be able to provide him with details on how Hydra could have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.

It’s a couple of miles to the nursing home, but Steve’s used to walking everywhere. He picks up a bouquet of red roses from a flower stand. The sidewalks are crowded, busy with lunchtime traffic. Steve stops at a crosswalk, but when the signal flashes at him to go, he doesn’t move. The back of his neck is prickling. He looks over his shoulder. The businessman behind him glares for blocking his path, but there’s no one else watching him.

Steve pops the collar of his peacoat and ducks his chin to his chest, nervously side-eyeing every driver for a red skeletal face. He’s being paranoid: the Winter Soldier mentions Hydra, and suddenly there are ghosts on every corner.

He makes it to the nursing home without any issues, and when Peggy sees him, her eyes light up in childish delight. “Steve!”

“Hey, Pegg,” Steve says, smiling softly. He leans down to press a kiss against the papery skin of her cheek. “How’s my best gal?”

“Wonderful, darling,” Peggy says, taking one of his hand between both of hers. It’s a good day: her voice is crisp and her eyes are clear. She searches his face and looks pleased at what she finds there. “You look to be in good health. The future is good for you.”

Steve quirks a small smile at her. “I feel pretty good, too.”

“I’m very glad to hear,” she says, patting his hand.

“Peggy,” Steve says, sitting on the edge of her bed. “After I—left. What happened to Hydra?”

Peggy’s hands tighten around Steve’s, hard enough to bruise. Her eyes are wide, but her lips stretch into the fakest smile Steve has ever seen on her face. “Why, do you feel like reminiscing about the past?” she teases. He doesn’t need her to squeeze his hand again to know she wants him to play along.

She mimes tapping on a keyboard and Steve fishes out his cellphone. “Well, you know me,” Steve says, smiling back at her. “Wanting to relive the glory days, when I got to be a hero.”

Peggy glances up at him from where she’s slowly pecking something out on his phone and says, seriously. “You have always been a hero to me, Steve Rogers.” And even though they’re playing for cover, she looks like she’s telling the truth.

Steve pushes her thin white hair off her forehead. “Not nearly as big of one as you, Pegg.”

“You always were a sweet talker, Rogers.” Peggy hands the phone back to him, but closes his hand over it before he can look at the screen. “Have you met a nice lady yet?”

Steve snorts. “No, Pegg.”

Peggy waggles her eyebrows in a way that’s far too lascivious for someone her age. “Any nice fella?”

Steve’s cheeks immediately go hot. He glances nervously around the room, even though he knows it’s not the 1940s anymore and that fellas can go with other fellas without getting arrested. “ _Peggy_.”

Peggy rolls her eyes, and even though Steve wants to crawl under the bed in embarrassment, his heart is bursting at the familiar gesture. “It’s the 21st century, darling. Stop being so dramatic.”

Steve rubs at his cheek with one hand, willing down his blush. “I promise to bring by any lady—”

“Or fella,” Peggy says, grinning.

“—or fella,” Steve says, a little frantically, even though his inevitable sexuality crisis is the last item on his agenda, “for your approval.”

“Damn right,” Peggy says. Her eyes are starting to look a little heavy, so he brings her hand up to his lips and kisses her knuckles, and leaves her to rest.

Outside the nursing home, Steve takes his phone out of his back pocket and looks down at the screen. In a new text, Peggy had written: **Operation Paperclip**

When he finally makes it back home, he drops onto his couch with a gusty sigh. His family room is a disaster: there’s an explosion of scrap paper covered with confidential information and sketches of the Red Skull in the margins, three empty coffee mugs, and his laptop perched proudly in the middle of it all. He frowns at the dark screen. Somehow, he doesn’t think Googling ‘Operation Paperclip’ will get him any results. He grabs his phone and taps out a quick message.

**Steve: Do you have any information on Operation Paperclip?**

**Natasha: why would you need that**

**Steve: Research.**

Steve isn’t all that surprised when his phone lights up with a new call from Natasha. 

“Is your line secure?” Natasha demands.

Steve pulls his phone away from his ear to frown at the screen. He’s not that confident about modern technology, but he has a feeling it’s not the best idea to discuss sensitive material over cellphones. “It’s a StarkPhone?”

Natasha is silent for a minute, then says, “After World War II, some dumbass in the US government came up with the brilliant idea to recruit Nazi scientists for strategic value.”

Steve is stunned silent. He knows he’s always been an idealist, but he would like to think that the leaders of the free world would be smart enough not to recruit _actual fucking Nazis_ for ‘strategic value,’ whatever the hell that means.

“Seriously?” Steve asks.

“Don’t ask me.”

There’s a thread linking Operation Paperclip to something from his past, one that he doesn’t really want to follow. He digs his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose and groans.

“Steve?”

“I know of one Nazi scientist the SSR got their hands on for sure,” Steve says, slumping back into his couch cushions. “He was the Red Skull’s lead scientist, and was captured by the Howling Commandos in 1944. Arnim Zola.”

* * *

Steve hadn’t even realized that he’d fallen asleep until he nearly flails off the couch at the brush of cold, hard fingers against his forehead. The family room is dark, lit only by the pale glow from his TV. Evidence of his freak out litter every nearby surface: printouts on the SSR and S.H.I.E.L.D., sketches of Arnim Zola, handwritten notes on Operation Paperclip.

The Winter Soldier looms over him, shadows cast over his masked face. He draws his metal hand back.

“Jesus Christ, you took ten years off my life,” Steve says, scowling and knuckling the sleep from his eyes. 

“Why are you sleeping out here? You have a bed,” the Soldier asks, sounding—disapproving, what the hell. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Steve says, defensively. “I just fell asleep.”

“What are you researching?” the Soldier asks, picking up one of the scraps of paper that has a very detailed depiction of the Red Skull being vaporized, drawn straight from Steve’s nightmares.

“Hydra.” Steve gets up to turn on the light. There’s no way he’s having a conversation in the dark with someone as creepy as the Winter Soldier. He leans against the back of the couch, keeping it between himself and the Soldier, and frowns at the explosion of notes on his coffee table and couch. “I think I’ve finally figured out how they managed to rebuild themselves after Schmidt. Have you ever heard of Arnim Zola?”

The paper in the Soldier’s hand crumples. Steve looks up in surprise. The Soldier has balled both his hands into fists and is trembling slightly, his breath coming out in harsh, ragged gasps. Steve flinches slightly. “Oh, wow.”

The Soldier sucks in a deep breath, then releases the paper. It flutters to Steve’s dirty carpet.

“I need your help with a mission,” the Soldier says to the floor.

“Sure,” Steve says, automatically, because he’s a complete sap. He rubs the back of his head. “Though I’m not sure how much help I’m going to be. Why me, anyway? Why not someone like Natasha? She’s the most capable person I know.”

The Soldier lifts his head. “Because it’s _you_.”

Steve doesn’t know why, but his heart starts thumping erratically against his rib cage. He thinks, hysterically, about introducing the Soldier to Peggy, then shakes his head. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“You’re Steve Rogers. I read about you in the Smithsonian,” the Soldier says, and then quotes, “‘Rogers gave his life in service of his country.’ You crashed a plane in the Arctic. But—you’re here.”

Steve smiles shakily and shrugs one shoulder. “Perks of modern science,” he says. “The serum didn’t stick, but I guess it changed me some. The uh, super soldier serum, I mean. Dr. Erskine invented it in the early 40s to help the Allied powers. As you can see, it didn’t do much.” He waves a hand at his skinny chest. “Changed me some, though. Or, at least, it let me survive being frozen for seventy years. I really was born in 1918.”

“July 4th,” the Soldier says. 

For some reason, Steve’s heart skips at that. His birthday isn’t common knowledge. It used to be a great thrill of Bucky’s, to watch the fireworks with Steve. Steve never got it, even when Bucky had explained to him, “It’s like the whole world is celebrating you, Stevie!”

“I see you’ve been doing some light reading,” Steve says.

The Soldier stares at Steve. The moment drags, and Steve clears his throat.

“Right, so. What’s your mission?” he asks, mostly to break the silence, but also because he can’t think of anything he can do that the Soldier _can’t_.

The Soldier says nothing.

Not for the first time, Steve gets the feeling that the Winter Soldier needs to be guided. So he says, “Can you tell me anything about Zola?” since that seems like the topic most likely to get a response.

Steve immediately regrets asking when the Soldier goes rigid and bows his head. “Zola—“ He cuts himself off, almost brutally. “He made a perfect weapon.” The Soldier lifts his metal hand and waves his fingers at Steve.

Steve freezes. There’s something blithe about the Soldier’s movement. It’s not quite playful and edging on viciously sarcastic, but it’s the first time the Soldier’s done something so—human. He shoves the thought down. “Your arm?”

“All of me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know—I don’t remember much.” The Soldier considers for a long moment. “Very painfully. ”

Steve winces. “Christ. It’s a good thing you don’t remember, then.” He rubs his hands over his face, wanting to ask more, but keeping his questions to himself. He doesn’t think the Soldier wants to share those particular details at the moment. “Can you tell me what they’re doing now?”

“Insight,” the Soldier bites out. It costs him something. He presses the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Project Insight.”

The Soldier is spiraling—which is likely to end in blood in tears, so Steve gives him a moment and writes the name of the project in one of the sketch pads he’s using to take notes. The name isn’t familiar to him. Maybe Natasha will have more information. He’s not sure he’s going to get much more out of the Soldier. He’s pacing in front of the coffee table again, hands clenched so tightly into fists that Steve can hear the metal of his left hand grind.

“Can you tell me about Project Insight?” Steve asks. 

“I don’t know!” the Soldier snarls, slamming both his hands against the coffee table. The poor table doesn’t stand a chance. It snaps clean through the middle. Papers and empty coffee mugs spill to the ground. “They didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t work for them.” He falters, clearly realizing the absurdity of what he was saying. “I—they made me—I—”

The Soldier’s shoulders curve inward, like he’s trying to make himself smaller, and Steve feels his throat close and his eyes burn. Natasha would probably kill him—Bucky would’ve _for sure_ killed him, but Steve circles his couch and places both his hands on the Soldier’s trembling shoulders. The Soldier’s jolts like he’s been tasered, but he doesn’t pull away.

Steve can’t say everything will be okay, because _it won’t_ , and his ma didn’t raise a liar. He doesn’t know why the Soldier has imprinted on him, and he doesn’t know how he can possibly help, but he can _try_. So he doesn’t even flinch when the Soldier drops his head on Steve’s shoulder, just runs his hands up his tense back and whispers nonsense into the side of his head.

Eventually, the Soldier pulls back. He rakes a hand through his hair in a movement so familiar that Steve’s chest ties itself into knots. “I’m leaving,” he mumbles, turning to the window.

“Wait,” Steve says, reaching for him. He hesitates, then lays his hand against the Soldier’s metal arm. “Are you going to be okay?”

Steve watches the stiff line of the Soldier’s spine get impossibly tighter, then the Soldier pulls away and disappears out the window without another word.

* * *

The next morning, Steve dresses himself with steady hands, holsters a Glock under his white button down, and leaves for work.

Instead of going to his cubicle, he heads to the front desk, leans against the counter, and tries a Bucky Barnes Charming Grin. It fails to impress the no nonsense brunette seated at the computer, but Steve manages to get what he wants, anyway. He makes his way to Operations control.

Kate— _Sharon_ —is completely unapologetic for spying on him. “I was doing my job,” she says, not looking up from where she’s typing at least a hundred words a minute. 

“On whose orders?” Steve asks, leaning back against her desk.

Sharon does stop typing for long enough to look at him, then resumes her work. “You know who.”

Steve drums his fingers against her desk. It doesn’t give him an answer about _why_ Fury thought it necessary to put someone on him, but he shelves that question for now.

“I need your help, Sharon,” Steve says, quietly. He fishes a scrap paper from the back pocket of his fitted slacks and pushes it across her desk. 

_Project Insight_

Her fingers freeze over her keyboard. She turns to him, her brown eyes promising imminent danger. “Where did you hear about this?” 

“Fury,” Steve lies. “He told me before—he told me to go to you.” He feels like the world’s biggest asshole for using a dead man’s name like this, but he needs answers, and he doesn’t think Sharon will give any to him if he doesn’t bring out the big guns.

Sharon scans the room over her computer; no one’s paying attention to them, but she makes a show of grabbing her purse and blazer and says, “Sure, Steve, I’d love to go to lunch with you.” She crumples up the scrap paper and takes his arm in a way that looks affectionate, but in reality digging her claws deep into his bicep.

In the elevator, Sharon lets him go and stalks over to the window, rubbing her forehead with two fingers. Steve opened his mouth to push, but the glare she shot at him in the window’s reflection made him snap his mouth shut. He wondered, suddenly, if she knew about Hydra, and _how_. He folds his arms behind his back, resting one hand on his gun—apparently not discreetly enough, because her look goes wry.

They go to Blue Bottle Coffee down the street and take a booth far from the door. Sharon doesn’t say anything until their coffee is ready—black for her, Affogato for him, since gourmet coffee desserts are still a novel extravagance to him. Then again, scooping ice cream in his mouth in front of a possible Hydra operative isn’t very dignified.

The coffee shop is buzzing with conversation, the din loud enough to sweep away their voices, but Sharon leans her elbow on the table, close to Steve. She stirs her coffee casually, but her eyes keep flicking around the restaurant. “Three Helicarriers with the ability for continuous flight,” she murmurs, lifting her cup to take a sip from the stirring straw. “They’re synced to a network of targeting satellites that can read DNA.”

Steve stirs the ice cream and coffee into a slurry and furrows his eyebrows at her. “For what purpose?”

“Neutralizing threats.”

Steve stops stirring his coffee. He tries to wrap his mind around that and fails. “Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?” he demands.

“Keep your voice down,” Sharon hisses.

Steve leans closer to her, angry. “You’re telling me S.H.I.E.L.D.’s holding a permanent gun to everyone’s heads?”

Sharon narrows her eyes at him. There’s something familiar about her hard look that, bizarrely, makes him soften a little. “If you have any problems with it, take it up with Pierce.”

Steve’s phone buzzes and he glances at his screen. He’s got a new request for a meeting in fifteen minutes. He stands up, frowning at the screen and the other attendee. “Looks like I’ll get the chance to.”

* * *

“Mr. Rogers,” Pierce says, not turning around to acknowledge him. His tone is dismissive; someone like Steve is so far beneath him he’s hardly worth his time. 

Steve sort of wants to punch him. He fists his hands behind his back but otherwise doesn’t let his reaction show. He’s used to being dismissed. 

“How can I help you, sir?” Steve says, modulating his tone. He can’t quite bring himself to be deferential, so it comes out monotone. Not that Pierce notices. 

“I was impressed by your quick response when Jasper was shot. Impressed, and a little surprised,” Pierce says, turning around to look at Steve. He slowly drags his eyes down Steve’s body, then back up, and it’s clear he finds what he sees lacking. Steve tightens his fists, but keeps his face blank.

Steve shrugs, not having anything to say to that. Had he known about Sitwell’s affiliation, he probably wouldn’t have been so quick to protect him.

Pierce circles his desk and leans against it. “It’s been a rough week for you. You were also there for Fury’s shooting, weren’t you?”

Warning bells go off in Steve’s head. This man is dangerous. “Yes, sir. Unfortunately.”

“It’s been bothering me,” Pierce says, fixing Steve with a friendly mask that only partially hides the threat underneath. “Why would Fury go to you of all people?”

Steve’s wondered the same thing. The only conclusion he can come up with is that Fury recognized that Steve is one of the few people who would sacrifice his own life if it meant protecting the greater good, and thought that self-sacrificial streak meant he could be trustworthy.

“He didn’t say, sir.”

Pierce glances over Steve’s shoulder at the door, and Steve can tell he doesn’t believe him. “You may not know this, but Nick and I had a lot in common. We’re both realists. The world can be a perfect place, but to get there, you have to get your hands dirty. And some people don’t appreciate our methods.”

A chill slithers down Steve’s spine. He had to be talking about Project Insight.

“I’ve made enemies. Fury’s made enemies. I intend to find out who they are.” Pierce looks at Steve, blue eyes flinty. “I’ll ask again. Why did Fury go to you?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I wish I knew.” Steve’s voice is steady, but the fists behind his back tremble.

For a long, tense moment, neither of them move. Then Pierce sighs and relaxes back against his desk. Steve takes that as his cue and leaves the office. Pierce doesn’t stop him.

Steve stumbles into the elevator, running a shaky hand through his hair. His heart is thundering against his ribs. 

“Operations control,” he tells the elevator, folding his arms behind his back. The gun is a comforting press against his wrist.

“ _Confirmed_ ,” the elevator says.

The elevator drifts to a stop after only one floor, and Brock Rumlow steps in.

“Hey, little guy,” Rumlow says, grinning viciously.

Shit.

Rumlow blocks the exit until the elevator doors swish shut, then moves to stand by Steve when the car starts drifting down again. Steve wraps his hand around the grip of his gun.

“Before we get started, I want to give you the option to get out,” Steve says. “I won’t go easy on you.”

One corner of Rumlow’s mouth curls up into a mean smirk. “That’s cute, Rogers,” he says, and then backhands Steve across the mouth.

Steve crumples to the ground, the familiar tang of copper on his tongue. He gets up swinging, but Brock just punches him in the eye, sending him onto his back. Steve pulls his gun from his holster, but Rumlow settles his huge boot on Steve’s forearm.

Rumlow tsks and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t do anything you would regret, Rogers,” he says, and steps down.

That’s when the Winter Soldier fucking drops from the ceiling and onto Rumlow’s back. Steve just manages to roll away before they crash into the ground. There’s a scuffle, then a snap of electricity, and the Soldier snarls in pain and backs off, crouching between Rumlow and Steve.

“Stand down, Soldier!” Rumlow shouts, scrambling to his feet. He holds an electric rod out like a sword. “Where the fuck have you been? Pierce—”

The Soldier tackles him against the elevator wall. Rumlow grunts and slams the rod against the Soldier’s right arm. The Soldier is momentarily immobilized, but then he knees Rumlow in the chest. The electric rod drops from Rumlow’s hand and skitters across the floor. Steve snatches it up, holding it in front of him like a shield. He doesn’t dare try swinging it, in case he accidentally hits the Soldier.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rumlow shouts. He socks the Soldier across the face, and Steve winces, but the Soldier’s head barely moves.

“я тебя убью,” the Soldier growls, then grabs Rumlow in a sleeper hold.

Rumlow kicks out, and the elevator really isn’t a good place for a brawl, because his boot catches Steve in the ribs. Steve shouts in pain, which seems to inflame the Soldier: he grabs Rumlow by the front of the shirt and punches him in the face with his metal fist, knocking him out cold with one hit. The Soldier swings back again, and Steve knows that this next hit will definitely kill him.

“Wait,” Steve says, catching the Soldier’s arm with his free hand. There’s no way he can just sit by as the Soldier caves in a man’s face with his fist. The Soldier obediently stops and looks at Steve. “Let’s just go. Please.”

The Soldier drops Rumlow and straightens. He’s enormous, and bloody, and Steve shakily lifts the electric rod. The Soldier reaches past it and blots the corner of Steve’s mouth with the tips of his fingers. Steve flinches, but the Soldier just looks down at his blood on his fingertips. Then he balls his hand into a fist and turns back to Rumlow.

“No no no,” Steve says, dropping the rod and grabbing the Soldier’s arm with both his hands. “I know he is a jerk but we are _not_ killing him.”

The Soldier actually growls. “Asshole,” he mutters. 

“We can agree on that,” Steve says, pulling on his arm again. “Hey, are you okay? He zapped you good a couple of times.”

The Soldier’s goggles turn to him, and Steve doesn’t need to see his eyes to know he’s staring at Steve in disbelief. “Idiot,” he says.

Before Steve can take offense to this, the elevator jutters to a halt and the doors swish open. An entire army of men dressed in black tac gear are waiting on the other side, guns pointed at Steve and the Soldier. 

“It’s the Asset!” one of them shouts, and several puzzle pieces click into place in Steve’s mind. 

The Winter Soldier shot Nick Fury.

The Winter Soldier is the Asset.

The Asset had been working for Pierce before he went rogue.

“Ah, fuck,” Steve says.

The Soldier punches through the wall and rips out the wires, then grabs Steve around the waist and ducks.

And then they’re free falling. Steve presses his face into the Soldier’s chest and clings with both hands, a scream caught in the back of his throat. The emergency brakes kick in before they smash into the ground, thank God, but when the Soldier pries the doors open again, there are more feet thundering toward them.

The Soldier closes the elevator again.

“Shit shit shit,” Steve says, then searches for the electrical rod. He is not going down without a fight.

But then the Soldier slams his metal fist through the elevator window, grabs Steve like he’s a dame, and leaps out. Steve screams and the Soldier lands on his feet, knees bent, hard enough that the sidewalk cracks under him. There are shocked screams as pedestrians turn heel and scurry away.

“You alright?” the Soldier asks, as if he isn’t the one who just jumped _five stories_.

“Wonderful,” Steve says, though the adrenaline is making his hands vibrate. He smacks the Soldier’s metal arm. “Put me down. I am not being carried out of here like this.”

“We’ve got to move,” the Soldier says.

Steve knows there’s no way he can keep up with the Soldier, but the idea of being cradled like some swooning heroine makes something curdle in his stomach. The Soldier huffs out an annoyed breath, then swings Steve up to his shoulders.

Steve’s about to complain that being carted around like a child isn’t much better, but then the Soldier hands a goddamn submachine gun up to him, says, “Watch my back,” and grabs onto Steve’s thighs with both his hands.

It’s pretty ridiculous, the Soldier running with long strides through the grounds while Steve perches on his shoulders and fires on the pursuing STRIKE team. But it’s also exhilarating. He hasn’t felt this alive since the war.

“Two o’clock!” the Soldier shouts, and Steve twists around to shoot the goon sprinting toward them. His shot goes a little high, and Steve winces as the man collapses to the ground, clutching his stomach. 

“Oh God, I was aiming for his leg,” Steve says, horrified.

The Soldier barks out something that sounds like a laugh, and of course he would laugh at Steve shooting some poor asshole in the stomach. There’s a volley of gunfire behind them, and the Soldier jerks forward with a small grunt.

“Were you hit? Soldier, are you okay?” Steve shouts, but the Soldier doesn’t acknowledge him or slow his pace.

Steve twists around and lays suppressive fire on the STRIKE team. He doesn’t actually want to kill anyone, but then again, they are goddamn Nazis who want to kill basically everyone, so he doesn’t think he’s going to lose that much sleep if he does.

“Where are you taking us?” Steve shouts, when he realizes they’re running deeper into the campus.

“The garage,” the Soldier says, and then Steve has to grab his head with both hands as he punches a scared security guard in the face.

The Soldier sprints through the garage like he knows exactly where he was going and isn’t carrying someone over one hundred pounds on his shoulders. He stops by a truly beautiful Harley-Davidson roadster, drops Steve onto the back of it, and swings himself on in one graceful move. Steve barely has time to wrap his arms around him before they’re peeling out of the garage, into the sunlight.

There’s a Quinjet waiting for them on the bridge. The Soldier hits the brakes and the bike skids sideways for a second. He braces the bike with one leg, then pulls out a handgun from his front vest and shoots the pilot three times through the windshield.

“Jesus,” Steve says, awed, as the Quinjet tips away. He didn’t think it was possible for anyone to make a shot like that with a _handgun_.

“Hold on,” the Soldier says, and guns it.

* * *

They’re a couple miles away from S.H.I.E.L.D. when the Soldier finally relaxes. Well, ‘relaxes’ is probably too strong a word, but Steve’s pressed all along his back so he can feel the moment a minute amount of tension eases from his shoulders. 

“Where are you taking me?” Steve asks, when he realizes he has no idea where they are. The Soldier seems to be taking random turns, and Steve’s hopelessly lost.

“Somewhere that’s safe,” the Soldier says, and then adds, a little ominously, “For now.”

They stop in front of a ragged building somewhere in NoMa. Bucky herds him down a alley that reeks of garbage and piss and through a narrow door. The studio he takes them to is even smaller than Steve’s apartment. There’s a dingy mattress covered by a sleeping bag on one side of the room and a kitchenette on the other, with no other furniture but a table and a couch. 

Steve staggers into the family room when the Soldier pushes him through the door, but he spins around and grabs the Soldier’s arm to help him into the apartment. Not that the Soldier seems like he needs much help, and Steve thinks that if he wasn’t wearing his goggles, he’d be giving Steve a funny look.

“You were hit,” Steve explains, tugging at his arm. 

The Soldier doesn’t move. He looks a little ghoulish in the early afternoon sunlight. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding. Now come on, let me see where you were shot,” Steve insists. When the Soldier continues to not move, Steve gives up. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

For a moment Steve’s pretty sure the Soldier is going to say something like, ‘First aid kits are for mortals and plebs,’ but he just says, “Bathroom.”

With those vague instructions, Steve goes to the bathroom and searches first in the medicine cabinet, then under the sink. He pauses. There are several rolls of toilet paper stacked in the cabinet. It gets to Steve, for some reason. As much as he’s been preaching that the Soldier is a human too, it isn’t until he sees something this mundane that it really strikes home. Steve shakes himself off and grabs the first aid kit before the Soldier finds him being maudlin over toilet paper.

When he gets back to the family room, the Soldier is where he left him, a dark sentinel. “Take off the Kevlar,” Steve says.

The Soldier dutifully removes his vest. Without it, he’s thinner than Steve expected, in a way Steve will never be. Rangy, all muscle. The Soldier pulls up his shirt, revealing the bloody gunshot wound above his right hip. Steve is pathetically grateful that the bullet went all the way through; he’s been around a lot of carnage in his life, but he’s not sure he’d be able to fish out a bullet without doing some damage. 

“Let me know if I hurt you, okay?” He pulls up a chair and sets to disinfecting the wound, and it’s weirdly not weird. It says something about him that he’s starting to like having the Soldier around—says he’s a sad sap, that’s what. How pathetic has his life gotten that he’s so desperate for company that he’d welcome an international assassin as a companion? But this is the first time since he woke up in the Arctic that he actually feels—he doesn’t know how he feels. ‘Happy’ is too strong of a word; ‘less alone,’ maybe.

Steve’s being careful, but the Soldier’s still unusually quiet. He glances up and finds the Soldier already watching him. “Everything alright?”

The Soldier is still, but after a moment he nods. His goggles are fixed on Steve’s face. “You’re hurt, too.”

Steve snorts and waves a dismissive hand at his face. His lip is no longer bleeding and there’s not much he can do about his eye. It’s not even the worst black eye he’s gotten. At least he can still open it. “This? I’ve had worse walking home from the shop. Besides, I heal a little faster than normal. I think. One of the few things from the serum that actually stuck.”

The Soldier cocks his head to the side, but says nothing. Steve finishes patching him up, then pats him lightly on the side and pulls the chair back to the table, the legs catching a little where dingy carpet meets dingy linoleum.

There’s an open notebook on the table. He pauses, then frowns. The Soldier had pasted a picture of Bucky’s Howling Commandos on a blank page. Steve recognizes all the men he never got to meet but heard so much about in Bucky’s letters: Jim Morita, James “Monty” Falsworth, Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan. And Bucky, in the right corner, resting his hand on top of his Thompson submachine gun. Steve sets two fingers on the notebook and drags it closer.

Bucky’s face has been scratched out with black ink, so hard that the pen has gone through the paper.

A metal hand reaches over Steve’s shoulder and closes the notebook. Steve spins around and backs up, bumping into the table.

“Wh-what the hell?” Steve demands, his voice lifting by the end of the sentence until he’s shouting. Fury roils up his chest and into his throat, tight and painful. Seeing Bucky’s face defiled like that feels like a—a violation. “What the _hell_? Why would you—how _dare_ you!”

He shoves the Soldier’s chest with both hands. The Soldier steps back, though Steve isn’t deluded enough to think that he’s strong enough to move him. “You have _no right_ —” The words keep catching in his throat and he shoves the Soldier again. 

“Steve,” the Soldier says, grabbing his wrist. Steve shouts in wordless anger and tries to wrench his arm free, hard enough that his bones grind painfully together. 

“Let me _go_ ,” Steve bellows, flailing a wild punch at the Soldier’s face. The mask grates against his knuckles and the Soldier leans back.

“Steve, stand down!” the Soldier snaps. When Steve just yanks his wrist again, the Soldier reaches up to rip off his goggles. His eyes are gray and hard, like bits of broken glass.

Steve freezes, staring up into the Soldier’s eyes. His heart is thundering furiously in his chest. The Soldier releases his wrist and Steve lifts trembling hands to the Soldier’s mask. With careful fingers, Steve unhooks the mask from the Soldier’s ears 

and

it’s

Bucky.

The mask clatters to the linoleum and Steve staggers back into the table, so hard that he knocks over the blood-stained chair.

“B-Bucky,” Steve stammers, then shakes his head to deny what his eyes are telling him. “No. No, that isn’t possible.”

The Soldier’s eyelashes dip at the name. And then—and then he says, “Is that what you called me? The Smithsonian said Captain James Buchanan Barnes, but it doesn’t feel right.”

Steve covers his mouth with both his hands, vision blurring. 

“Steve,” the Soldier says, reaching a hand to him.

Steve jerks back and the table skitters across the floor. He flings out a hand, and the Soldier stops. “ _No._ They told me you were _dead_. They told me you fell off a train in the Alps. That you—that you—“ He can feel his face crumple in horror, because even though there is _no way_ Bucky can be here, in 2014, with a face like a broken heart and _missing a fucking arm_ , that is his best friend staring at him down at him.

The Soldier wraps his flesh around himself and looks down. “I did,” he says, unable to meet Steve’s eye. “I don’t remember much. But they found me. Hydra found me.”

Something lurches in Steve’s chest and he gasps harshly. His knees give out. Bucky follows, wraps his arms around him, and it’s Steve fists the front of Bucky’s shirt with both hands. He’d grieved for Bucky, in 1945, when he’d gotten the letter from Gabe about the train on the Alps, and again in 2014. He’d gone to the Howling Commandos exhibit at the Smithsonian, read every scrap of information he could about Captain James Buchanan Barnes, even took a picture of the panel dedicated to Private Steven Grant Rogers, Bucky’s best friend since childhood who’d sacrificed his life to crash a plane full of nukes into the Arctic. He’d grieved for Bucky, his best friend, the last of his family, and Bucky had been turned into a _weapon_.

Steve isn’t a crier—he’s had a lot of hardship in his life, and he’s faced everything with his chin lifted, but now a sob tears out of him, uncontrollable and childlike. Bucky hauls him closer, pressing his face into Steve’s hair. 

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky says. “I’m so sorry.”

“ _God_ ,” Steve gasps. He pulls back slightly, shaking Bucky’s _metal fucking arm_. “Don’t you dare apologize. Not for this. Not for—for—” He gets a wave a vertigo thinking about what Hydra has done to Bucky and has to blink rapidly. Bucky looks miserable, shoulders hunched and eyes lowered, and Steve wraps his arms around his shoulders. Bucky hesitates, then tenderly holds onto Steve’s hips and presses his lips into Steve’s hair.

* * *

Before Steve crashed into the Arctic, before Bucky fell off a train, Steve lived without Bucky for years, and then for a lifetime. Bucky had enlisted, and left Steve with nothing but sporadic letters. Then Steve had enlisted, and even the letters stopped for months. Steve never stopped writing, sending him detailed anecdotes about basic, how Hodge was a jerk and how Peggy was pretty swell. Steve had spent all those months thinking Bucky had been mad at him for enlisting. He hadn’t known until he’d made it to 2014 that Bucky had been busy being _tortured_ , and then rocketed up to Captain as some sort of publicity stunt when he'd single-handedly rescued his entire unit and then some from Azzano. Steve had been resentful, and hurt, and a little bitter that Bucky refused to understand what it meant that Steve finally got to serve his country. And then, after months of radio silence, he’d finally gotten a letter.

Bucky had written: _You got your wish, pal. Now maybe the world will finally see you as the hero I’ve known since we were kids. I’m proud of you. Be safe._

They were supposed to see each other again. Steve’s regiment was to be sent to the front. And he’d made it, spent months fighting across Europe to get to the 107th. But when he’d got to where Bucky was supposed to be, it was to receive another letter—not from Bucky, but from Gabe Jones.

“I missed you,” Steve says now, holding onto Bucky on top of the couch cushions they’d dragged to the floor. His eyes are heavy and grainy, and there’s a persistent throb behind his forehead. “I missed you so damn much, Buck.”

Bucky smooths his hand down Steve’s back, then up again. There’s a small, perplexed furrow between his eyebrows. 

“I can’t believe you fucking crashed a plane into the Arctic,” he says, unexpectedly, and Steve chokes out a surprised laugh.

“How much do you remember?” Steve asks, instead of going down _that_ particular rabbit hole. He tangles his legs with Bucky’s. Bucky is tense and all hard muscle, and he’s fucking _huge_ , but he seems as unwilling to let go of Steve as Steve is to let go of him.

“I remember you,” Bucky says, burrowing his face into Steve’s hair. “Right when I saw you. I knew you.” 

“You knew about my lungs.”

“You always did have trouble breathing.”

Steve sniffs wetly, and Bucky says, quietly, “Gross.”

It’s such a small thing, but Steve’s heart fills with warmth and he burrows his face into Bucky’s chest. But with the joy of getting to hold his best friend again for the first time in decades comes a searing burn of anger. How could anyone take someone like Bucky—brave, loyal, wonderful _Bucky_ —and turn him into a machine? 

“I’ll fix this,” he promises, into Bucky’s chest, his heart beating with a new resolve. “Somehow. They’re never hurting you again. I promise.”

* * *

Steve always wakes up slowly. He’s never been a morning person—or a night person, for that matter. He’s a “sleepy person” who “greets the morning sun with a scowl,” according to Bucky. So it takes him several long moments to realize that he’s alone on the couch cushions, and that it’s not actually morning and that he’s waking up from an impromptu nap. He twists onto his back and lets out one long groan of pain. With all the excitement from escaping from S.H.I.E.L.D., followed closely by learning that his best friend was still alive, Steve had completely forgotten that he’d had the shit beaten out of him. Now his body is forcibly reminding him. He’s got that sour ache all the way down to his bones, and for a moment all he can do is lie perfectly still with his eyes screwed shut, breathing through the pain.

When he finally manages to open his eyes, it’s to Sam’s concerned face hovering over him.

“What’re you doing sleeping on the floor, man?” Sam asks, with his usual easygoing smile. But it doesn’t match his eyes, which are fixed straight ahead. Beside him, Natasha has her gun out and pointed in the same direction Sam is staring. “That’s gotta be hell on your lungs.”

It is, kinda, since there’s dust under the couch, but he hasn’t started coughing yet. Steve lifts a hand to rub his eye, still trying to work past the ongoing throb of pain.

“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Natasha says, but Steve can’t tell if she’s talking to him, or—or—

“Wait!” Steve yelps, and shoots to his feet. Bucky is crouched on the other side of Steve, his head lowered like a cornered animal, eyes chips of granite, a handgun pointed at Natasha’s chest. Steve doesn’t know where he is, but Bucky’s not here right now, at least not fully.

“Steve, he’s got a gun!” Sam shouts frantically.

Steve stumbles to Bucky, getting tangled in the sleeping bag, and falls. Bucky is there to catch him, wrapping one arm around his waist. 

“Let him go,” the Black Widow says, cool and emotionless.

Now even Sam has a gun drawn on Bucky. Steve tries not to feel like he’s in the middle of no man’s land. No one has fired their weapon yet, so at least there’s that.

“Steve,” Sam says, gently. “There’s a condition called Stockholm syndrome where hostages develop an emotional connection with their captors. You’re one of the best people I know, and I think it does you credit that you can find sympathy for someone like the Winter Soldier. But he’s hurt you, buddy, and you need to let us help you.”

Steve twists around in Bucky’s arms, completely flabbergasted. “Wait wait wait,” he says, holding up one hand. He rests the other hand on Bucky’s arm. He doesn’t think Bucky means for him to be a hostage, but he’s happy to make himself one if it keeps anyone from shooting at each other. “He didn’t hurt me.”

Sam lifts a pointed eyebrow at Steve’s face.

“That was _Rumlow_ ,” Steve insists. Bucky’s arm tenses around him at the name. “He was going to kill me in the elevator at S.H.I.E.L.D., but Bucky dropped in and—”

“Bucky?” Natasha says.

“He’s Captain James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th,” Steve says, tilting his chin up stubbornly. “He’s my best friend, and if you want to shoot him, you better be ready to go through me.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow and—Steve could have probably worded that better, considering her past with the Winter Soldier. Her gun doesn’t waver, but Sam lowers his.

“This is _Bucky_? As in _your_ Bucky?” Sam asks. 

Steve doesn’t blush easily, despite what people like to think about him because of his size, but his ears burn a little at the possessive pronoun. Still, he nods wordlessly and presses close to Bucky’s solid chest. 

The Black Widow still doesn’t waver. “He shot Fury.”

“I’ve shot a lot of people,” Bucky says, which doesn’t really help his cause and sounds a little like a confession.

“Natasha, he’s been a Prisoner of War for seventy years,” Steve says, firmly. “It was only after he found me that he was able to break his conditioning.”

“I’m going to need more than that,” Natasha says, keeping her gun trained on Bucky’s face.

“They—had a chair,” Bucky says, his arm tightening around Steve. It’s his human one, but it’s a steel bar against his chest. The gun creaks in his hand. “Sort of like an electric chair. They used it to wipe my memories. Over and over and over again. And then when they didn’t need me, they put me on ice. I—didn’t do any of it on purpose. Now I’m trying to stop them.”

There’s silence in the room. Steve’s hands are trembling. He’d known, objectively, that Hydra had tortured Bucky, but he hadn’t known the _details_. The room sways. It’s like he’s back on the Lemurian Star. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Man, that’s fucked up,” Sam says.

Natasha lowers her gun, but doesn’t put it away. After a tense moment, Bucky lowers his gun, too.

“How—” Steve says, thickly, when he’s able to speak again. “How did you find me?”

“There’s a tracker in all StarkPhones,” Natasha says. “Pierce released a statement this morning that the Winter Soldier has taken you hostage. They’re searching for you as we speak.” 

“Natasha hauled me here as soon as word got out,” Sam says, and there’s a story behind that, but he doesn’t elaborate. 

“Did you tell S.H.I.E.L.D. my location?” Steve asks, panic bubbling in his chest.

“No,” Natasha says, eyes narrowing. “I didn’t think that was a good idea, since you were digging into Operation Paperclip yesterday.” She pauses, then the corners of her eyes wince ever so slightly. “But S.H.I.E.L.D. is in contact with Stark.”

“Fuck,” Bucky says, then lets go of Steve to grab Steve’s StarkPhone from the coffee table and crush it in his metal hand.

It’s too late.

There’s a tremendous crash and Bucky’s front door flies open. A whole army of STRIKE agents kitted out in black Kevlar charge into the room, and Steve says, “Oh, hell,” as Bucky seizes the couch with one hand and hurls it at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> я тебя убью - I'll kill you.


	3. Chapter 3

The couch takes out the STRIKE team’s front line, but it’s shoved aside by a huge agent with a submachine gun pointed at Bucky and Steve. Okay. Steve wishes he was armed with more lethal weapons than his bony fists, but he’s always ready for a fight.

“On your knees!” the agent shouts. “Get down on your knees, now!”

And then Bucky’s got his right arm wrapped around Steve and Steve’s suddenly on the other side of the apartment, in the kitchen, crushed tightly against a wall of Kevlar and murderous rage. He pushes back to look up at Bucky’s face, but it isn’t Bucky who’s got him pinned right now, it’s the blank-faced Winter Soldier who had beat the hell out of Rumlow just yesterday. Even without the mask, Steve can see the difference.

“Пригнись или они убьют тебя,” Bucky says. Steve can’t understand him, but he knows it’s an order. When Steve doesn’t comply fast enough for the Soldier’s liking, he shoves Steve’s shoulder roughly, and Steve goes down hard, knees cracking against the linoleum.

“ _Ow._ Dammit, Bucky!” Steve snaps, shifting up to a crouch, but Bucky’s already vaulting back over the cabinets. And then Sam’s also vaulting over the cabinets, but into the kitchen, and nearly bowls Steve over. His eyes are wide and he still has his gun out.

“Christ, Steve, your boyfriend is scary,” Sam says. Steve thinks he might have missed something, but Sam’s got his gun out and is taking shots at the STRIKE team from behind he microwave.

Bucky curses and draws two guns. He lays waste to the first wave of agents, but it’s like the floodgates have opened. For every one STRIKE agent Bucky and Natasha take out, five more take his place. Natasha and Bucky are forced to holster their guns and engage the agents in close quarters combat, whirling and twisting in flashes of red, black, and gleaming metal. 

“Do you have another gun?” Steve asks, frantically searching the kitchen for a weapon. He yanks open a drawer, then shrugs and hurls a fork at the STRIKE agent who had just leveled his gun at Natasha’s back. The agent spins around, all ten feet of righteous fury, and Sam shoots him in the face.

“God,” Sam says, horrified, as the man crumples to the ground.

“Nazis,” Steve says, reassuringly. 

“Falcon! Get him out of here!” Bucky shouts, snapping Sam out of the fugue state that was threatening to overtake him. Sam pops his head over the counter for long enough to shout back, “Okay, sure, but _where_? We’re on the fifth floor and I don’t got my wings.”

A mean looking guy about the size of a house looms up behind Bucky and clubs him across the back of his head. Steve yells in warning, too late, but Bucky just grunts and pivots, slugging the guy in the stomach with his metal fist. The goon hunches over, just in time to catch Bucky’s knee with his face.

“Bucky!” Steve shouts, and makes a lunge for the counter.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sam says, dragging him back down. “You are a _civilian_. Let Black Widow and the Winter Soldier do what they do best. You’ll just be in the way.”

It kind of stings, being reminded that he’s nothing more than a (very) breakable human. He flattens his lips and tilts his chin up stubbornly, but doesn’t dive in the fray even though he’s vibrating with the need to fight. While it hurts to hear, he knows it’s true. The last thing he’d want to do is distract Bucky or Natasha and get one of them hurt.

He shouldn’t have worried. The fight comes to him, anyway.

The STRIKE goon is massive, bull-faced, and has a buzzed head and a scar bisecting the corner of his mouth. Steve yells, grabs a frying pan, and wallops the goon across the face. The pan bends at the handle, but the agent just bares his teeth and grabs Steve in a chokehold. 

Sam shouts, “Steve!” but another goon lunges over the counter and grabs Sam by the front of his shirt.

“Отпусти его,” Bucky snarls viciously. There are three agents between them, but Bucky goes absolutely ballistic, cutting through them like they’re pesky weeds.

Steve flails wildly, biting and scratching and using every dirty trick he’s learned from back alley brawls. It does very little against the steroid-junky. His vision starts to black out at the corners.

“B-Bucky,” he gurgles.

“STOP!” someone bellows—not someone, it’s that asshole _Rumlow_ —and there’s a click of a safety being released, right next to Steve’s ear. Steve goes completely still when a barrel of a gun presses hard into the side of his head. Everyone in the room stops.

Steve can see Bucky around the goon’s arm. The whites of his eyes are showing and his teeth are bared, like he’s a feral animal who’s been abruptly leashed.

“Come with me or the kid gets it,” Rumlow tells Bucky.

“I’m ninety-seven,” Steve grits out, because he hates being patronized, and he really hates Rumlow.

Rumlow cuffs the back of his head with the butt of his gun. Stars explode across his vision. Steve staggers, but the goon keeps him upright. 

Steve tries to tell Bucky with his eyes that he’s fine, because Bucky looks like he’s going to tear apart the room with his bare hands, starting with Rumlow’s face. Then Bucky sinks back into himself, eyes going flat and dead. He bows his head. “I’ll go with you if you let him go.”

“Buck, no,” Steve pleads.

The gun remains at the side of his head for a moment longer, then draws away. Steve’s shoulders sag. He hadn’t even realized how tense he was. 

“Fine,” Rumlow says, sounding pleased with himself.

Steve watches, aghast, as one of the goons lock Bucky’s wrists together with a pair of magnetized cuffs. The stupid, self-sacrificing _asshole_. He can’t go back to Hydra. Bucky catches his eye and his lips twist in a wry smile, like he knows exactly what Steve’s thinking and agrees, but can’t come up with a better solution.

Rumlow strides into the family room and shoves Bucky towards the door. There are no less than five guns trained on Bucky’s head. “Take the others with us,” Rumlow says, over his shoulder. “We can use them to control him.”

“What?” Bucky demands, twisting to look over his shoulder as the goons level their guns at Steve, Natasha, and Sam. “You said—“

Rumlow pistol-whips Bucky across the face. “Move.”

Bucky stares at him, eyes wide and teeth bared, like he wants to lunge forward and tear Rumlow’s throat out with his teeth. Then he looks at Steve, who has a gun pressed to his head again. It’s getting _really_ old.

“ _Move_ ,” Rumlow repeats, shoving Bucky again.

“I am going to enjoy killing you,” Bucky says, and steps out into the hall.

* * *

Bucky watches the Hydra goon that’s holding a gun to Steve’s head with his snake eyes, which is clearly doing a number on the goon’s nerves, if the faint tremble Steve feels at his temple is anything to go by. Steve watches Bucky. He _will not_ let them have Bucky again, even if it means getting his head blown off in the process.

“Don’t do anything stupid, man,” Sam hisses.

Bucky darts a glance at Sam, then at Steve’s face, then back to the goon. “If one strand of hair on his head is outta place,” Bucky says, matter-of-fact, “I will rip off your head.”

Steve can’t see the goon’s face, but out of the corner of his eye he can see the gun deliberately pull back. 

“Or maybe,” Bucky continues, in the same flat tone, “I’ll kill you and put your body on display as a warning.”

The guy beside Bucky edges away from him. 

Steve thinks it says something about him that he actually finds Bucky’s threats weirdly sweet.

“You don’t gotta worry about him, Buck,” Steve says, lazily. He slouches forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “These cowards won’t shoot unless they get the okay from Big Boss Pierce.” He slants a look at the agent beside him, who has gone very still. “Isn’t that right, asshole?”

“Jesus,” Natasha says, under her breath.

One of said cowards flicks on an electric rod, pointing it threateningly at Steve. Bucky tenses, ready to do good on his threat and rip the goon’s head off, when the goon slams the rod into the agent with the gun pointed at Steve’s head. At the same time, Bucky traps Steve’s ankle between his feet and yanks him off the bench, hard enough that he whacks his head on the edge. 

“Ow!” Steve yelps.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, then headbutts the shit out of the guy beside him. 

“What the hell,” Sam says. 

The goon who helped them pries off their helmet, revealing a sweaty brunette who looks kind of familiar. “No wonder why these guys are so dumb. All their brains have been squeezed out by these helmets,” she says in disgust. 

Steve narrows his eyes at her. “Wait, hold on a second. You’re that tech from the Lemurian Star. The one who ran away from me.”

“To be fair, you were about to puke everywhere,” the tech says, flashing a brilliant grin at him. Steve doesn’t miss the sudden hard glint in Bucky’s eyes. “Maria Hill.”

Then her eyes land on the Winter Soldier and her expression darkens. She points the electrical rod at his chest. Bucky doesn’t even flinch, just stares flatly back at her.

“Don’t hurt him. He’s on our side,” Steve says quickly, then kicks Bucky’s ankle. “And don’t even think about it, you. She just saved our lives.”

“I can’t believe you just kicked the Winter Soldier,” Sam mutters.

Amazingly, Bucky flashes a smile at Sam. It’s a whole helluva lot meaner than the usual Captain Bucky Barnes smile and it doesn’t quite make it to his eyes, but it’s the first time Steve has seen Bucky smile in this century. It makes him feel warm, and a little jealous that it’s not pointed at him, because he’s dumb like that.

“He is absolutely not coming with us,” Hill hisses.

Bucky’s smile drops and he turns his unblinking glare on Hill. “I’m Steve’s. Where he goes, I go,” Bucky says. And then he pulls apart the magnetized cuffs. 

Steve’s mouth drops open for so many reasons, starting with Bucky saying that he _belongs_ to Steve and ending with his casual display of strength and how goddamn hot it is. Sam snorts and nudges Steve’s side with his foot, and Steve closes his mouth with a quiet click of teeth.

“Bucky,” Steve admonishes. Bucky ignores him and helps him to his feet. “Agent Hill, can we argue this outside the Hydra car? Please?”

Maria rescues them with a device that can apparently tunnel through anything. It’s unfairly convenient, but Steve isn’t complaining. She stalks ahead of them, talking in a low voice on her cell phone.

Bucky prowls after her, laser-eyes on her back. It strikes Steve that this is the first time he’s seen Bucky around people in an environment that’s _not_ rife with bullets and blood. Bucky—doesn’t seem to be handling it very well. He’s reverted a little; his eyes are bits of glass and his face is a set in a blank mask. Steve reaches across the small space between them and wraps his hand around Bucky’s wrist. He does it tentatively, giving Bucky plenty of opportunity to pull away before he touches him, but Bucky just sways closer. It feels like another win.

“How are you doing?” Steve murmurs.

“Uninjured,” Bucky says, not taking his eyes of Hill’s back.

Steve tugs on Bucky’s wrist. “That’s not what I mean.”

Bucky flicks a look at Steve, then turns back to Hill. “You don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

“Hey.” Steve tugs on his arm until Bucky really looks at him. “I do. Of course I want to know how you’re feeling.”

Bucky’s eyes get a mulish glint to them that Steve never thought he’d see again, but there’s something both more vulnerable and more hardened than Steve is familiar with. “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”

Steve bites his lip. He wants to push—he’s always pushed with Bucky. But he doesn’t know his boundaries anymore, how hard he can push before Bucky snaps. Back in the ‘40s, Bucky had been infinitely lenient on the small, sickly Steve. He doesn’t think this Bucky has the same unending well of patience as 1940s Bucky had.

He is, however, still uncannily good at reading Steve. He slows down a little, bumps their shoulders lightly. He’s still not looking at Steve, but Steve bumps him back.

* * *

“Well, this is a surprise,” Fury says, eyeing Bucky with an unreadable expression. Maria’s taken them to an underground facility where the apparently very _alive_ Director Fury has been hiding out. Fury’s in the medical wing, being fussed over by a couple of doctors, who suddenly seem much more nervous with the Winter Soldier lurking around like a blank-faced gargoyle.

“You’re telling me,” Natasha snaps. “What the hell, Fury!”

“It was need to know, Agent Romanoff,” Fury says.

“ _I_ need to know these things!” Natasha snaps. Even though her expression is hard, Steve can see how the corners of her lips are trembling, a rare sign of vulnerability.

“I killed you,” Bucky says, and there’s a blankness in his eyes Steve doesn’t like. He reaches over and takes his hand, and Bucky comes back to himself to frown at Fury. “I don’t miss.”

“You didn’t miss, but I didn’t die. Tetrodotoxin B slows the heart, so I can see how you might have thought you killed me,” Fury says, flashing a truly terrifying grin at him. “You here to finish the job?”

Bucky actually looks like he’s considering it. Steve elbows his arm, which is a mistake, since he’s on Bucky’s left. Steve rubs his elbow grumpily, but Bucky flashes him a look. It’s—still not all there, but Steve thinks he can detect a hint of softness in his eyes. A very, very small hint.

“No,” Bucky grits out, finally. “I’ve defected.”

“So I’ve heard. Which is the only reason why you’re here.” Fury sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately, I can’t afford to be choosy.” 

Bucky says nothing. Steve has no idea what’s going on with him, but if he seemed out of it earlier, he’s almost completely shut down now. Steve doesn’t miss the way Sam and Maria keep their distance, although Natasha stubbornly sticks close to Steve’s other side.

A man in a white lab coat appears by Fury’s side and hands him a metal briefcase. Fury opens it to reveal three computer chips.

“What are those?” Sam asks.

“Targeting blades. Once we stick these bad boys in, the Helicarriers will lock on to each other. The only casualties will be Hydra,” Fury says, and then smiles fiercely. “Problem solved. Then, we can salvage what remains of S.H.I.E.L.D.—”

Steve holds up a hand. “Oh no. What, you think that by taking down the Helicarriers you’ll be solving the Hydra problem? No. Hydra goes. S.H.I.E.L.D. goes.”

Fury leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “S.H.I.E.L.D. necessary to maintain global security.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. fostered goddamn Nazis for decades and nobody noticed,” Steve says, flatly.

Fury waves a hand at the facility. “Why do you think we’re in this cave? I noticed.”

“Oh, did you?” Steve says, straightening and folding his arms over his chest. “And how many people got hurt before you did?”

Fury’s eyes cut over to Bucky. “I didn’t know.”

“And if you did? What would you have done?” Steve shakes his head. “No. I’ll say it again. Hydra goes. S.H.I.E.L.D. goes.”

To Steve’s surprise, it’s Maria Hill who backs him up. “He’s right, Nick.”

When Fury looks at Natasha and Sam, Sam shrugs and says, “Don’t look at me. I follow the little guy.”

Fury doesn’t even bother looking at Bucky. He sighs. “Okay. Looks like you’re giving the orders around here now.” He slides one hand over his head and mutters, “Was he always this goddamn bossy?”

To the everyone’s absolute shock, Bucky huffs a small laugh.

* * *

They can’t make their move until the Helicarriers launch, which won’t be for another eighteen hours. Steve and Bucky are fed, watered, and given a room far away from the main rooms, mostly because the Winter Soldier is acting twitchy and making everyone nervous, Steve included.

“Sit,” Steve orders, pushing Bucky to a computer chair. Bucky goes willingly, letting Steve push him down into the chair. His thousand-yard stare is focused somewhere over Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve frowns. “Is everything okay? You’ve been acting kind of…” He trails off, mostly because he doesn’t know how to end that sentence. Strange? Strang _er_? Fucking _Hydra_.

And then Steve realizes something’s horribly wrong when Bucky’s mouth opens, like he’s expecting something to be put between his teeth.

“Bucky?” Steve asks.

“Я готов отвечать,” Bucky says.

“Buck, where are you?” When Bucky still doesn’t respond, Steve reaches out, hesitantly, and touches the fading bruise under his eye.

The chair clatters violently to the floor as Bucky surges to his feet. Steve throws up his hands and stumbles back. In the blink of an eye, Bucky’s on the other side of the room, crouching in the corner, eyes glinting and feral.

Steve’s hand hovers in the air. “Buck?”

Bucky says nothing.

Steve knows, for a fact, that Bucky has a whole arsenal of weapons hidden on him. That doesn’t stop him from edging closer, hand still outstretched, like he’s trying to coax a wild animal. He crouches in front of Bucky, but doesn’t touch him.

“Buck?” Steve says again, deep with growing rage. He takes a deep breath through his mouth, then releases it through his nose. The last thing he needs to do is make Bucky—the Winter Soldier—think he’s mad at him. His repaired heart is battering itself against his ribcage. “This is a thing, huh? Another reason why I’m going to have to destroy Hydra?”

Bucky twitches slightly. There’s a sad frown that’s toying at the edge of his mouth. It’s about a million times better than the emptiness from the chair, but it still makes Steve’s heart clench.

The chair.

Steve curses under his breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Not for the first time, he wishes he weren’t such a mess of a human. If the serum had stuck, if he were bigger, stronger, he would have been there with Bucky on the train, and he would have _caught_ him.

There’s a feather-light brush of fingers against his temple. Steve’s eye fly open. Bucky kneels before him, metal hand raised. He’s still not fully there, but he no longer looks like he’s gone off to a totally different world.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, miserably.

Bucky shakes his head. His throat works, like he’s trying to say something, but nothing comes out.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Steve says, tipping forward to his knees. 

“Can I—” Bucky says, hesitantly.

“Anything. Everything.”

It’s true, too. Ever since they were kids, Bucky’s been it for Steve. Bucky’s eyes go bizarrely both soft and hard. He splays one hand against Steve’s back and drags him into his arms, enveloping him in an all-encompassing hug. Usually Steve hates feeling small—and it’s impossible not to, with Bucky built like one of Stark’s custom mansions—but right now, he’s so glad he fits with Bucky like this. Bucky drops his head and tucks his face against the crook of Steve’s neck.

They kneel like that, Steve running his hands down the hard panes of Bucky’s back, Bucky exhaling hot shuddery breaths against Steve’s skin. It isn’t until Steve’s knees start to protest that Bucky finally pulls away.

“You shouldn’t come tomorrow,” Bucky says.

Steve frowns. “What are you talking about?” 

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Since when have I ever backed down from a situation because it’s too dangerous?” Steve demands, pushing himself to his feet. Bucky catches his wrist with his bionic hand and holds him in place. 

“Don’t,” Bucky says. “Don’t walk away from me.” It’s not quite an order, closer to a plea.

Steve stops pulling back. He wants to cross his arms, but Bucky’s hand is a steel band around his wrist. “I’m sure as hell not going to sit back and risk the lives of millions of people just because you think I’m too weak to help.”

This isn’t new, either; Steve had been determined to enlist, Bucky always, always told him that it wasn’t going to happen. Well, it did, and Steve had been awarded a whole mess of medals post mortem. And, now seventy years later, he’s going to stop Hydra from killing hundreds of thousands of people, even if Bucky thinks he’s too _weak_.

“That’s _not_ it,” Bucky growls.

“Then what is it?” Steve demands, throwing his free hand up. Bucky’s mouth flattens in a tight line. “They need us. I know I’m not as skilled as Natasha, and I don’t have a suit like Sam’s—”

“I can’t lose you again,” Bucky snaps. “If I do, I will burn down this godforsaken world until nothing is left but ashes.”

Steve lowers his hand into his hair. He rakes his fingers back, then sighs and steps closer. Bucky lets his hand go and drops his head, but Steve cups his face between his hands and tilts it back up. “I will never turn my back on people in danger, even if it means putting my own life at risk. I just can’t do it, Buck. Not if I play even the tiniest role in saving the world. But I promise you, I will do everything within my power to come out the other end alive.”

Bucky studies his face for a long moment, then winces his eyes closed, as if Steve just hit him. Steve leans down, pressing a kiss on the familiar groove between his eyebrows. Bucky sucks in a shuddering breath and thumps his forehead against Steve’s stomach.

It had been a long time since Steve had been touched like this. So much longer for Bucky, though. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, getting caught in a knot. He winces and discreetly tried to untangle his fingers from Bucky’s hair.

Bucky tilts his head back. There’s the younger step-brother of amusement in his gray eyes and Steve flushes a little.

“You were always better at comforting than I was,” Steve admits with a sigh.

The hint of a smile twitches Bucky’s lips, but the furrow between his eyebrows has made a reappearance. Then he says, out of the blue, “Were we—? Did we—?”

Of all the times for him to ask. Steve’s face flames up. He clears his throat. “No. I mean. Not yet. But—we were gonna. Try. After the war.”

Bucky’s lips curve into a small, bemused frown and Steve chuckles, smoothing his thumb between his eyebrows. “You kissed me before you left. Made some dumb joke about a proper send off, smacked me one of the kisser, and then _left_.”

“I bet that pissed you off.”

“You’d win,” Steve says, a little wry. “I wrote you this long, coded letter ticking you off for kissing and running and then ordering you to do it proper when you came home.”

Bucky’s eyes track down to Steve’s mouth. Steve licks his lips and the hand on his wrist tightens ever so slightly. “Seems kind of cowardly of me,” Bucky says, not taking his eyes away from Steve’s mouth. “To kiss and run.”

“Well,” Steve says, loyally, “braver than me, at least.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything further, and Steve doesn’t push. It’s _really_ not the time.

“Come on,” Steve says, tugging at Bucky’s arm. “We should try to get some shut eye before we blow up some futury spaceships tomorrow.”

* * *

Storming S.H.I.E.L.D. is incredibly easy when you have a dead director, two Russian-ish ex-assassins, and a guy who can fly. The first two Helicarriers are a piece of cake; they lock them down with time to spare. The final Helicarrier proves to be a bit more trouble; it’s crawling with armed Hydra agents who appear to be taking great pleasure in unloading their entire arsenal on Bucky. Sam deposits Steve gently behind Bucky and Steve hoists up his semi-automatic.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

Steve can’t answer for a moment, too busy mowing down a line of STRIKE agents. “Yeah, Buck?”

“About our conversation last night. Did you—do you still wanna try?”

Steve lowers his gun, dumbstruck. “Out of all the goddamn times to _ask_ —” Bucky shoots the lanky man who was running at Steve, knife at hand. “Thanks.”

“Is that a no?” Bucky asks.

Steve flings both his hands in the air, gun and all. “Of course it’s not a no, you jerk. I most definitely want to try.”

Bucky’s smile lights up the entire futury Nazi spaceship. “Punk.”

Steve should be forgiven for nearly getting himself shot. Bucky’s smile is _that_ distracting.

“If the two of you are done flirting, can we get on with the whole blowing the Helicarrier up part of the mission—fuck!”

Steve wheels around in time to see Brock _fucking_ Rumlow has got a hold of one of Sam’s wings. He’s got these huge metal contraptions on his wrists that sort of look like torture devices—and apparently gives him super strength, because he rips off Sam’s wing and then hurls him off the Helicarrier.

“ _Sam!_ ” Steve bellows.

“ _I’m all right_ ,” says Sam, after a long, terrifying moment. “ _Asshole grounded me, though_.”

“Go,” Bucky tells Steve, eyes locked on Rumlow. “I’ll take care of him.”

Steve grabs Bucky’s arm and Bucky tears his eyes away from Rumlow for long enough to look down at Steve. “Be careful,” Steve says. “I love you.”

And then Steve sprints to the targeting system. He doesn’t look back, even when he hears the sharp crack of something hard and metal striking flesh.

He scrambles up the tower, wheezing painfully. There’s a stitch in his side that that feels like he’s been shot, but he doesn’t stop. This is their only chance. If they don’t lock Alpha down, thousands of people will die. He pushes himself onto the platform, arms trembling.

Something punches his side and Steve’s body jerks forward. There’s a howl of anguish and fury, but it’s behind him. He looks down. Red is spreading across the front of his shirt. 

_I’ve been shot,_ Steve thinks nonsensically, before his knees buckle. It doesn’t hurt that much, but probably because he’s riding high on adrenaline and fear. The targeting system is _right there_. 

“Steve!” Bucky bellows, distantly. Steve doesn’t take his eyes from the targeting system. He crawls forward, warm blood rolling down his stomach. He grabs the side of the targeting system and hauls himself up, smacking his hand against the control panel.

There’s another gunshot and fire sears along the side of his leg. Strangely, this one seems to hurt more than the hole in his side. He groans and clutches the tower, tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. He’s spent most his life trying not to die, and he doesn’t want to die now, but he _can’t fail_.

“Steve!” Bucky shouts again, and there’s the sound of something hitting flesh and then a roar of pain. Steve flinches. He hopes to God that wasn’t Bucky.

It takes all his effort to slot the chip into the port, but after two fumbling tries, it clicks into place. He sags back down to his knees, touching the headpiece on his ear. “Okay, Agent Hill,” he says, voice faint. “Fire now.”

“ _Steve, you still have time to get out,_ " Hill says.

Steve smiles a little. “I don’t think I’m gonna be going anywhere.”

“ _Steve!_ Sam shouts.

“Fuck that, you stupid, self-sacrificing son of a bitch,” Bucky snaps, crouching in front of him. There’s blood on the side of his face, and he’s favoring his right arm, but he’s still _alive_. Steve grins at him, glad that he gets to see Bucky one more time.

“Heya, Buck.”

The Helicarrier rocks violently as the first missiles explode against the side. Steve’s eyes flutter closed in pain. Hands—one warm, and one cold—lift Steve with heartbreaking tenderness. Distantly, Steve hears another explosion and the world lurches, but he’s okay, now. Steve lets go, lets himself sink into the darkness. Bucky’s got him. He’s okay.

* * *

Steve wakes up to the low strains of Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” and he smiles before he even opens his eyes. He really does love Sam, even when he’s being a sarcastic asshole.

“Hey,” Bucky says softly, and warm, dry fingers brush against the side of his face. “You with me, pal?”

Steve’s eyes flutter open to the beautiful sight of Bucky Barnes smiling down at him. Steve smiles back at him. “Hi, Buck,” he rasps.

Bucky’s eyebrows crumple together and he ducks his head for a second. Suddenly it’s 1940 again, and Steve’s just come out of a fever dream to find Bucky watching over him, exhausted and scared but trying to put on a brave face. When Bucky lifts his head again, he’s regained control of his expression. “You really scared me, Stevie.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, turning his face and kissing his wrist. His eyebrows furrow. He’s not firing on all cylinders, but there’s something very wrong about this scene. “Wait,” he says, slowly. “Bucky, should you be here?” The heart rate monitor next to his bed spikes suddenly. “Buck—”

“Shh, it’s okay.” Bucky takes Steve’s hand and presses his lips to his knuckles. “Hill vouched for me, and after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, Natasha dumped all of Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets onto the internet, including all the gory details on what it takes to create someone like me.” His lips twist. “I don’t think they know what to do with me.”

“They can’t have you,” Steve says, scowling as ferociously as he can—which isn’t all that ferocious, considering all the drugs he’s doped up on. He’s pretty sure it comes out more like a pout.

That actually gets a grin from Bucky. “Easy there, tiger. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Steve says, and his eyes drift shut again, to Marvin Gaye’s crooning voice and Bucky’s hand warm against the side of his face.

 

****

**EPILOGUE**

“I think I might actually give her a heart attack if she sees me, Steve,” Bucky says, fussing with his tie and scowling at his reflection.

“Yeah, if you look at her like that. I think that mug would give anyone a heart attack,” Steve says, taking the ends of the tie from him. Instead of tying it, though, he tugs Bucky closer and smacks a noisy kiss on his lips. 

When he pulls back, Bucky’s smile is lopsided. “She’ll love you, I promise,” Steve says, tugging off the tie and unbuttoning the first button. He huffs a laugh through his nose. “You’re ridiculous. We’re going to see Peggy, not to church.”

Bucky growls playfully at him and ducks down to nip at the soft skin behind Steve’s ear. Steve laughs and pretends like that sound absolutely didn’t go straight to his dick.

It hasn’t been easy: Bucky still can’t bring himself to sleep in the same bed as Steve even though Steve has told him many times he’s pretty sure he can’t die; he’ll lay with him until Steve falls asleep and then will migrate to the floor at some point in the night. He didn’t talk to Steve for a full week when he found out Steve let himself be experimented on by the guy who “couldn’t even get a damn car to fly, _Jesus,_ Stevie,” and only started talking to him again when Steve said, “It got me here with you, didn’t it?” Sometimes, Bucky will disappear for nights on end, like a tomcat prowling the streets. He always comes back rough around the edges those nights, but he always comes back.

Bucky fusses with his collar again, but dutifully drops his hands when Steve swats his arm. “I know. But I’m finally meeting your best gal. I gotta look my best.”

Steve leaves his hand on Bucky’s arm, then stands on his tiptoes to kiss Bucky again, slow and sweet. When he draws back, Bucky’s eyes are greedy. Steve’s heart flops a bit. He exhales a breath through his teeth.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Steve says, voice rumbly. “It’s hard enough seeing keeping my hands off you while you’re in that damn shirt.”

Bucky looks down at his shirt, as if he has no idea how lethal it is on him.

“And don’t get me started on your pants—”

“I love you,” Bucky interrupts. He says it a lot, and like it surprises him, like he didn’t know he had the capacity for love.

Steve beams at him and links their arms together. “I love you too, Buck. Now come on. I promised Pegg I’d introduce her to my fella, and I can’t go back on my word.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Пригнись или они убьют тебя - Stay down or they will kill you  
> Отпусти его - Let him go  
> Я готов отвечать - Ready to comply
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr!](https://writeonclara.tumblr.com/post/173675675862/home)


End file.
